The AppleShowAllFiles controls what you see in Finder, not in Terminal. In Terminal, ls will exclude dot files and ls -a or ls -A will include dot files.
Open a new Finder window, press shift-command-period to show hidden files if they're not already there, and now you should be able to read a hidden file.
Press Command + Shift + . (period) to make the hidden files appear. You can also do the same from inside the Documents, Applications, and Desktop folders.