I wanna get better at sight reading music. Maybe it's not necessary, cause I have a decent ear and am able to pick up songs pretty well.. but I'm tired of making up excuses for why I don't need to do it, it's just something I want to learn. I already know how to read music (I know the lines and spaces and rhythmic notation), but I can't just fluidly sight read a piece. Would you recommend getting really good at sight reading rhythms first? Playing a song in time is always what throws me off. I almost always have to count everything out and figure out where the notes hit and I want to be able to just easily play what's put in front of me without really thinking about it.
try sightreading things with a metronome at a really slow tempo. set the tempo slow enough so you can actually do it. then increase the metronome gradually