If you don't atleast know the rough meanings of each individual kanji within the jukugo, then it would be hard to understand the meaning of the full word. And you won't really learn the meaning new kanji by seeing them in jukugo until you look up that kanji in a kanji dictionary. However, for any kanji which you've vaguely learnt the meaning of, seeing them used within jukugo would help to better understand their meanings.
I'm not sure if you didn't mean it more in terms of for learning readings though... ?
For a proper answer to your question: I don't really know... I'd say you kind of need to do both together. I definitely couldn't suggest to you to do either of "ignore learning kanji in jukugo" or "ignore learning kanji individually". :P
December 14, 2014 at 1:57pm