Make sure you’re reading material that has furigana.
You’ve made good progress on learning kanji (being on level 17), but you need to build up recognition of vocabulary words in sentences, as well as recognizing and understanding particles and grammar.
When you first start reading, you’re not reading so much as deciphering. This continues until you learn enough grammar and vocabulary.
Take each sentence one at a time and drop them into ichi.moe to see how they break down into individual words and particles.
I also second @wanikani_94032 on joining the Absolute Beginner Book Club.
I wrote some advice a few weeks ago for first-time readers to prep for the club, and recently wrote a bit about what the reading experience will be like for first time readers.
Look up any vocabulary and grammar you don’t know for each sentence. Read up on the grammar along the way, so you can learn it better over time.
The Absolute Beginner Book Club is a way to streamline this process and help you zero in on exactly what to learn as you go.
Once you have enough experience deciphering your way through sentences, you’ll find it gets easier to recognize all the parts of a sentence (words, particles, etc) at a glance.