Seeing why pointers are used is especially important. Understanding that functions in C pass by value and what that means gives context to pointers as a useful tool instead of a longer and more complicated way to do things. Students become a lot more frustrated if they don't see a reason behind learning something, especially if there's any sense of elitism going on.

Additionally, a lot of these terms like that pointers now introduce (address, reference, etc) are being introduced without any sort of context, usually they're brand new to students. If you've never seen (and may never see) assembly then you miss out on a lot of what's going on at the beginning and eventually when you get it, as well. It's an abstracted view of what's going on.