here's a dirty seceret: we (people that have mathematical training) don't read the notation very closely either. it's very much like reading code: i don't look very closely unless there's a pattern i don't recognize or one that's broken. so ironically reading notation is about ignoring notation :) the problem for you is that you simply haven't had enough exposure to know what the "patterns" are and hence don't have t…
I was a college math major, and I can't read math the way I can read text or even sheet music. I familiarized myself sufficiently by writing out my own derivations and treating the textbook as a reference while working the problems. The act of writing the stuff out and manipulating it with my hands is how I learned it.