Reading Japanese is always tough at the start. I think it’s important to think of 2 things:
- Your current level of Japanese.
- The level of what you’re trying to read.
The bigger the distance between those two points above, the tougher it will be. Some people are willing to struggle with this more than others, therefore some start earlier than others. So what people usually try to do is:
- Increase their current level of Japanese.
- Reduce the difficulty level of what they’re trying to read.
My 2円 is… just keep giving it a try until you find some type of content (either easy news, manga, JP tweets, etc) that’s comfortable enough for you to stick with.
In a way to give you more practical advice, are you aware of the bookclubs that exist around the forums? 
Basically, the community gets together to read a book at the same pace We open threads so that people can ask questions and do general talk about what’s being read with everyone else participating. We’re currently reading books, but it’s not late at all to join So I’d suggest you to give it a look 
For words that I see through exposure, I just use the dictionary feature on Kitsun (think Anki, but with the user-friendliness of WK), as it has Jisho integrated and allows me to add words to my SRS routine in seconds. I see a word that interests me, I add it to Kitsun and I SRS it.
Perfectly normal I still get weird situations once in a while, when they mix words together in hiragana xD
2 things:
- The more vocab you know, the less this will be a problem.
- The more grammar you know, the less this will be a problem.