How to learn to read notation fluently

Alright, I'm not asking how notation works, I understand how it works perfectly on paper but I don't feel like I'm "reading" notation like I can read English; it's more like I'm deciphering a code.  It takes effort and time and I make miss-read the odd bit.  I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations on how to get better at reading notation fluently, particularly without spending a great deal of time playing/studying.

I ask because I recently picked up a few chess books that I'm reading more for entertainment than education.  I appreciate the instructional elements of them but the stories revolve around actual games with actual moves that are actually interesting and relevant and seeing positions and moves and watching videos is extremely easy for me to follow but seeing a position and reading 10 moves in notation can take me anywhere from 5-20 minutes just to figure out what the heck goes where in the game I'm reading about and that doesn't even count any time or thought given to ponder the significance of a position or sequence of moves and possible variations (the most enjoyable part).  I'm a very visual learner.  In both language & math, I've grown up with a handful of symptoms of dyslexia - perhaps this is why I'm so slow when it comes to notation.  Any suggestions for getting better at reading it quickly?

For me, the time I spent using chess books and magazines was probably what influenced my fluency most, of course after having spent lots of time in front of a board and pieces.

I still need a board.  Some simple combinations I can visualize simply based on the notation, but for most I need the visual cues.

Chess.com has a unique opporunity, with their interactive boards, to provide a lot of historical content in a much richer interactive form, and if they were to publish something that worked on one of today's tablets as a chess reader to which others could publish, well, forget about it....

(Erik, you're listening, right)?

I'd say you'll learn that mainly by doing it.

So use notation for writing down your tournament games while playing, and while studying chess books, for example when transferring the moves from the book to the chess board you are using for playing out the game from the book.

Maybe a special, intense and modern way for you to train reading chess notation could be by playing through database games on your computer. Read the notation of the game and with it, try to figure out how the next move is going to look like on the board, and then check immediately by just advancing the game by this move and thus letting the computer show you if you had figured it out correctly.

Or did you maybe even mean learning to figure out a long sequence of chess moves from a book without a chess board, just in your head? That involves a lot more training, including doing exercises for calculating ahead by quite a large number of moves or even practising to play blindfold chess a little. Most players who can do that well usually have reached about master-level strength or higher.

Thanks, and yeah, I meant figuring out long sequences of moves from a book without a board, I thought that was something amateurs could do 

My self esteem just rose a tiny little bit but I'm dissapointed because I was really hoping to be able to do this.  I guess I'll start taking a board with me to the beach/library on my reading days and do it like that - I thought it was normal to not need one so I was hoping to learn to do without.

I suppose common sense would also say I should just keep at it (reading notation) and not be such a lazy ass only watching videos because it's easier... and I could start notating my own games, which I've never done, because it seemed like a hassle plus 99% of my play is online and it's done automatically.  It's something that's turned me off of reading about chess games for a long time because it's intimidating/difficult (without a board and lots of time) and it's not like it will get any easier if I keep not doing it.

Try google translate

One thing that has help me is when I see Bg7 I read as bishop g7 not 'bee g7'. I made it a habbit to make sure of saying the piece name rather than the letter. 

@ivandh
LOL 

@anthony:
algebraic

@nooob:
yeah I read it as the piece name mentally, sounding out the name of the letter in my head would make me dizzy trying to figure it out.  Half of my books show a picture of a bishop instead of a B but the B doesn't bother me anyway, it's synonymous with a picture of a bishop to me anyway. 

I grew up on descriptive, and the transition to algebraic was challenging despite a ten year hiatus (of which I've had two!).

If you think dyslexia is involved (which seems like a reasonable guess at least) you should try doing something about that first, or better yet, determine if you are dyslexic or not. A visit to a family Dr for starters and some research on your own might help:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002379/

http://www.medicinenet.com/dyslexia/article.htm

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dyslexia/DS00224

I'm no whiz, but I'm pretty comfortable with algebraic notation and I can follow fairly long written lines in my head.  I agree with ChessNoob that how you read it can make a difference as you're learning, and when I was studying a game or sequence I went a step further and always made it a point to say the moves out loud as I read them or moved them on the board or screen:  

7.Bg5 h6 8.Bxf6 Bxf6
"Bishop to gee-five, pawn to aitch-six, Bishop takes eff-six, Bishop takes eff-six"

etc.  Sure, I felt stupid sometimes, but I think that approach as much as anything else helped me get to where I could read the notation and visualize it in my head.

I'm no advanced player myself but I take a game and read up to 5 moves or more until I find I can't seem to visually imagine the board anymore.  Then I restart and play out the moves again and push to about 10 moves etc....  I find this helps and now I can usually go higher but it takes time and practise.  Another practising tool I work on is to visuallly know what squares are light and what squares are dark.  That way when a piece goes on a particular square I can relate it to the color as well.  In other words If you just read that your Bishop Queen side just moved, can you instantly say what color bishop it is ?  and from there you would also know what square it will place on and its diagonal color.

Great idea! Chess.com could publish chess books that are interactive, all the games and variations avialable to play thru, link to other articles, say the relevant opening, etc. I use my ipad and a chess program to enter moves while reading but it sometimes turns out to be more trouble than it's worth.

Reading 10-moves lines without the board is the same difficulty that playing blindfolded. That's not so easy to achieve, it has nothing to do with reading or code interpretating problems. Personnaly it requires much attention for me. Even harder is to assess the position after that line (I can barely follow the line).

You can get better at that only by practice of calculation during games, and that unhappily I can't give any advice to make faster. As soon as you will be able to "see" in your head more than 5 moves ahead on the chessboard and manage to calculate only relevant moves (by "seeing" what squares are under control of which piece, etc.) your rating will mechanically go over the 1600 mark due to good tactical skill.

I miss descriptive notation.Drawing a mental image of say e4, c5, nh3 (bad move) and so on is next to impossible for me.  I can do it to some extent with descriptive.

Am I the only one who feels that way?

 I think I'm dyslexic cause I transpose numbers all the time.

After a while, you will get used to it.

Dyslexia..Hmm.It appears I may have visual dyslexia based on the information at the medicinet web site. So Woodshover thank you for pointing that out.Being 71 I'll pass seeing a another doctor.

Checkmateibeatu, I don't know if I will ever get used to it but I will try . Thank you.

You could also visualize it like algebra.