I had a heck of a time reading as a kid. I was taught just to sound every single word out and reading a chapter book took me literally forever. Beyond the time factor, my comprehension was terrible because in taking the time to sound every single word out I would lose track of the overall meaning of the sentence and often need to start over. I would say I was a very poor reader into high school.

Honestly the thing that really helped was just spending so much time on computers. Eventually something in my brain clicked and started memorizing shapes of the top of words. My eyes scan the top of the letters. I only fall through to looking at the individual letters when what I read didn't make sense. I can read pretty reasonably fast now.