no don't do that, the thing about begginners is that they have short attention span to these kinds of things, they don't want to read a book and get frustrated because they don't understand the machanics of it.
reading the book will make it seem more complex then it really is to them.
That's exactly the point. The idea is to see how committed they are and if they will persevere in their magic learning. They don't want to read a book and get frustrated? They will if they actually want to learn magic. If they want to learn, they'll read it and study it until they do. Especially if they have a short attention span. The idea, again, is to test them, and if they continue, then they are clearly committed. THEN, you can start properly teaching them, going through the book with them, etc.
After a month, don't judge them by how far they've gotten - but how much they've tried to get it down. If they come out of the first month with a ****ty double lift, you have the rest of their life to teach them double lifts; what's more important is to judge whether or not they put the effort into the double lift during that month. However, if they can do a double fine but only looked at the book for a day, what on earth use is teaching them magic gonna be? They'll keep learning and stopping after a day until they reach something more difficult, and give up.
I'm not sure what you did learning magic, but if you haven't struggled through a book before, I'm worried. If you did, what made you? Because you wanted to learn it. Not just to find out how it's done, but to actually learn it.
The primary point of this exercise is not to teach them magic; that is secondary; but to make sure that they will be committed to learning the art of magic. No use telling them that if they want to learn card magic, to go to look at so and so book or DVD if they view the secrets and can't be bothered learning.
