Just a little note before I put up my real post. I am sitting in Erick’s cubicle at the moment awaiting another page. I mentioned off-hand the “TOFI” phenomenon – thin outside, fat inside. Discomposed, he asked for more information.
I pulled up an article in the Guardian regarding this phenomenon to show him, but he asked me to read it to him. Nothing out of the ordinary there; we’re always reading something to each other here. I began to read it out loud while he went back and forth between checking his email and looking at me with horror in his eyes.
When he was given another page to check himself, I paused. “I’ll send it to you,” I offered when he asked for a time-out. He shook his head.
“No, I won’t read it,” he said. “I want you to read it to me. I understand things better when you read them to me, anyway.”
My guess is that Erick is a very auditory learner; reading alone won’t do it for him. Dictation – words, sounds, inflection – is what makes things stick for him. But I’d prefer to believe that my voice has some magical quality to it that makes difficult concepts easier to understand.
Does that sound right to you?