as a newbie to quilting, I hope you don't mind if I comment. I have done pattern reading myself before taking a basic class. It was difficult because one thing that I learned is that I am that 'visual learner'. It taught me something about myself as a student. The other thing is that until you have some familiarity with the task you do not know what questions to ask...I'm not sure that that makes sense. I only know that I ask different sorts of questions about instructions than I do about demonstrations. Is that any help to you?