Yeah Japanese is a hard language to learn. I'm going on to taking my third year this coming fall in high school and I'm still having trouble. When I feel like I'm getting nowhere, I look at my earliest papers and I realize how much I've learned. The first year I took it I got really into it and was already speaking brokenly by the end of the year . Now I can feel myself sliding which is a bit frustrating at times.
Anyways, a good way to practice your Japanese reading is to buy manga in Japanese because it's easy to read and it repeats a lot of the same words through out to help get you familiar with the vocabulary. Hope that helps
