[ssivark]

My way of dealing with this is to treat symbols as proxies for the verbal concept, rather than just some letters. As an example, when I see "E = mc^2" I read (energy-of-object) = (mass-of-object) * (speed-of-light)^2 and not "Eee equals Em Cee Square". Another great idea I use a lot when writing/reading is David Mermin's 2nd rule (verbalize the damn equation!) [1].

It's sad that many mathematical resources do not make a careful effort of helping someone reason verbally. I guess this is partly due to the fact that most people who are skilled in the subject and write about it prefer equational reasoning (for lack of a better word) to verbal reasoning! In my experience as a physics instructor for non-STEM majors, this might be one of the biggest impediments for otherwise intelligent people trying to learn math/physics.

[1] What's wrong with these equations? by David Mermin -- http://home.sandiego.edu/~severn/p480w/mathprose.pdf