Many of our readers can follow a Hindi film or chat with grandparents in Marathi, but reading a page of Devanagari takes them ten minutes and a headache. That gap is normal. Speaking and reading are separate skills, and the reading one only grows with practice on real text. These are the habits that help most.
Start with something you half know
Pick a text whose story you already know. Premchand's Idgah is told in almost every Hindi-medium school, and many Marathi readers know the outline of Shyamchi Aai from family retellings or the 1953 film. Knowing the plot frees your attention for the words.
Short beats impressive. A twenty-minute story finished feels better than forty pages of a novel abandoned.
Read the same page three times
The first time, read straight through and skip every word you do not know. Underline them lightly. The second time, look up only the words that seem to matter for the story. The third time, read aloud. By then the page should flow, and hearing yourself read connects the written word to the spoken language you already have.
Use the conjuncts trick
Most slow reading comes from conjunct consonants, the stacked or joined letters such as क्ष, त्र, ज्ञ and श्र. Make a short list of the ones that slow you down, and write each with a word you know (क्षमा, पत्र, ज्ञान, श्रम). After a week or two of seeing them in context, they stop being puzzles.
Choose a dictionary you will actually open
A phone dictionary that lets you type in Devanagari, or paste a word, is far more useful than a heavy printed one you never pick up. For older texts, keep in mind that Premchand uses many Persian and Arabic words (gaban, kafan, insaf), and Marathi saint poetry uses old forms that a modern dictionary may not list. A glossed edition helps with both.
Read on paper, or at least without notifications
Devanagari on a cramped phone screen is harder than it needs to be. If you read on a phone, turn up the font size and switch on do-not-disturb. Many readers find a printed paperback, or a printout of a public-domain text, much easier on the eyes.
Keep a small habit, not a big plan
Ten minutes a day for a month will do more than a whole Sunday once. Some readers keep a single book by the bed. Others read one Kabir doha or one Tukaram abhang each morning; they are short enough to finish with the first cup of tea.
Where to find practice text
Public-domain texts are ideal for practice because you can copy them, print them and mark them up. Hindi Wikisource, Hindi Samay and Marathi Wikisource all have older classics as typed text, which is easier to read than a scanned page. Our guide to free sources has the details, and the picker on our homepage will suggest a short book if you choose "An evening."