Update: listening to music seems to help me read.

The material is of course important, but I don't really have a choice about much of what I read. Usually it's for school (science textbooks) or work (scientific papers) - so fairly heavy stuff. Currently I've been only able to get through magazines of the Cosmo level, so...can't exactly read textbooks, much less scientific papers. But with some music I read two pages from a physics textbook before the skimming started. Progress!