Many people have trouble reading without becoming distracted. The words swim. Your eyes move across the page but nothing sticks. You realize you've "read" three paragraphs and have no idea what they said.
Here's a strategy that works for many distractible minds: speed up the rate of information input.
Listen to text as an audiobook and turn up the speed. Progressively increase it and notice what happens. Your brain starts to get enough stimulation to engage. There's more information per second, which means more for your attention to grab onto.
Try getting up to 2x speed. Some people go faster.
At higher speeds, you'll also notice more quickly when your focus has wandered. At normal speed, you might drift for minutes before realizing you've lost the thread. At 2x, you know almost immediately—the audio stops making sense. Just skip back 15 or 30 seconds until it sounds familiar again, and continue.
Once you've found your maximum comfortable speed, listen for a while. Then drop back down to 1x.
Notice how slow it seems.
This gives you insight into why your brain has struggled with reading at normal pace. There simply wasn't enough stimulation. Your brain was starving for input and kept wandering off to find it elsewhere.
Be ready to adjust speed based on context. Denser material needs slower speeds. Complex accents might require backing off. Light content can go faster. Active exercise might support faster speeds than sitting still.
Audio listening combines especially well with walking. The movement adds stimulation. The physical rhythm supports the mental rhythm. You might find you can absorb material while walking that you couldn't absorb while sitting.