Step 0 is to be confident with hiragana and katakana, if you’re not already.
My advice is after that to do a basic textbook or grammar lessons on something like Bunpro. Once you feel confident with the example texts in that material, I think you can start reading kids manga. It’s not going to be like reading English at first, but no amount of reading textbooks or SRS is going to make it that way. For context, I started when I was around level 8 on Wanikani and 60% of the way through the Genki I textbook.
What you can do to make it easier is follow along with one the absolute beginner’s book clubs on this forum. You can join in live to the current one 可愛いだけじゃない式守さん (Shikimori’s not just a cutie) or try some of the past ones at your own pace - people will still reply if you comment on the threads. The easiest ones are 小さな森のオオカミちゃん (the wolf of the small forest) and ハピネス.
There’s also this forum thread with tips and tricks: Resources for Starting to Read Japanese Content