Beyond notation and ordering, I have had the best results reading and comprehending complex concepts, including mathematics, by taking the following suggestion to the extreme: > Read with pencil and paper in hand, making up little examples for yourself as you go on. I like to find a difficult question that I can answer with an understanding of the material. This acts as a litmus test of my understanding and a forcing…
The best advice when learning math or anything is to "solve the smaller problem". Try to break the problem down into smaller pieces and work from there.
Trying to understand something complex as a whole can be daunting and intimidate people from even trying to understand it. But if break it apart into smaller parts and solve/understand those, many times, you find that it wasn't that complex in the first place.