Reading the Book Through Once

I'm just going to come out and say it: most of what Gardner talked about in the second chapter of Reading and Writing about Literature I already knew. Annotating text and asking critical questions has been drilled into my head, particularly from my AP Language class my junior year of high school. If I didn't get into the hang of it, I probably would have failed every test my teacher had ever given me (his tests were absolutely ridiculous). But, that being said, I personally think Gardner missed a key step when it comes to annotating and critical reading: you should read the whole work through once before commenting and asking questions.
Reading a work for the first time and scribbling away in the margins and asking critical questions can take away from the book and make it lose its magic. You become so busy with thinking that you lose sense of enjoying. Sometimes the annotations can actually be what makes you love a book because it gives the book a new sense of meaning, but I still think you should read through it once. Often times it's good to just read through the book once to get a feel for the story and really understand what's happening. You learn all the details of the character's life and you're fully encompassed in the plot. Often times something you may comment upon in the text is something that'll be cleared up by just reading a little further. One time I sent my friend a short story I had written to get her opinion on it and the first thing she said to me was that there was no sense of time. It bothered her to no end and she complained that, as a writer, I should know better, but I told her to keep going and she did. When she finally got to the end she understood why. I had set up the story so the character was in a dream. Screwing up the sense of time was my way of hinting at that. If she had calmed down and read the whole thing through she would have seen that. I think that's what a lot of people who annotate a book the first time through do. They would notice the change in time and comment on it, wondering why I did that and what significance it could hold. They would continue to ponder and maybe even eventually figure out that the story itself was a dream. To me, that takes away from the magic of the story. It's as if the reader is purposefully ruining the plot for themselves. (Have you guys ever watched a TV show where you're so into it that you come up with some crazy theory for the ending? If you're right, you kind of shrug your shoulders like you knew it was going to happen; it's nothing special. But, if you're wrong, then you feel disappointed because the ending you created wasn't used. It's kind of like that to me). Even if the reader doesn't come up with their own ending, but does comment upon the lost sense of time, it seems like a waste to me. What's the point of commenting upon something that you'll soon find out in a couple of pages? Just enjoy the book and the magic behind it and then, after finishing it and getting to know the full story, comment upon the things that interested you and you want to know more about because then you know you're not wasting your time on something that's already answered in the book itself. Gardner even hinted at this herself on page seven: "Rather, if a text is not immediately accessible to you, it is because you need to read more actively...." Not all text requires multiple readings to gather a meaning, so trying to actively find one on your first go around seems rather wasteful.
What do you guys think? Do you think you should read a book through once before annotations to get a feel for it or do you think annotating it the first time through helps you understand better, even if what you're annotating is nearby in the text?

EDIT: I'm sorry this post sounded more like a ramble instead of a response. I was really passionate about this one and just let myself go.