You may not find this a complete barrier to being a productive programmer. I've worked in an office full of people who almost certainly had more issues digesti

You may not find this a complete barrier to being a productive programmer. I've worked in an office full of people who almost certainly had more issues digesting English-language technical material than you do, where that was a major portion of what they had to do every day. Coping strategies exist. That said: I would explore avenues towards achieving confidence in your literacy, including by improving literacy if that is indeed an underlying issue here. Communication skills gate a lot of your future advancement options. Lack of confidence in ability to read will probably [+] hinder your ability to be at or above market expectations with regards to those skills. [ + ] Probably. I have a strong suspicion that the best boss I ever had was functionally illiterate in his native language and just covered it well. I don't know whether other people came to the same suspicion regarding literacy but lots of people came to the same impression regarding effectiveness as a manager.