I'm not good at it, but I've gotten better at it the more I've done it.

My method is this:

1. Start with a scientific paper, not a news article summarizing the paper. Scientific papers are laid out really nice, with an abstract that gives a simple overview, an introduction, conclusion, etc. The way they are structured and written, they provide a ton of context for terms that you don't understand, where an article will strip out the context providing insight to the term you don't understand, while overcompensating by explaining things at the "overview" or abstract level, which is not the problem you're really trying to solve.

2. Start with a paper on a subject you are super geeked and profoundly curious about. Like you are just climbing out of your skin to learn more. Not something you need to know more about for work or for school. Something that turns you on.

3. Read it on a computer, and literally do this: Each term you do not understand (this will likely occur in the first sentence, and there maybe several of these in the fist sentence and almost every sentence thereafter. Yup) you should highlight, right-click, and select "define" or "Search google" from the context menu. And....just read about that term. It will send you off on a tangent. You will spend a ton of time nowhere near the paper you are on, and each time you return to the next word, you'll not have made it past the sentence you're on, but 20 minutes will have past.

4. Rinse and repeat. Just keep knocking words down, one at a time. Oh also you won't fully grok each term before moving to the next one, but you'll start becoming familiar.

How I do it anyway.