Grammar and word choice

I need help with a few sentences:

I figured that because I was shy (since my English was bad) and not smart, I should start reading. I did just that and struggled with so many words, big words especially, such as "loathe" and many more.Luckily I had an iPod touch with a dictionary application installed which made my life much more convenient. I ended up looking up at the words every few seconds. As I kept doing this, the less frequently I had to look up at the words