Get Your Students Hired
It is important to thoroughly go over the syllabus in the beginning of a class because students need to know from the instructor's perspective what is being communicated from the written form.
Deborah, I agree, however the problem that I've always faced when I'm introducing the syllabus to my class on its first meeting, is that they instinctively go to the most important perceived sections. It's a challenge to redirect them back to page one and begin talking about class objectives, office hours, students with disabilities, etc., when they want to automatically refer to group projects, assessments, and class trips.