I was taught to read in a mechanical way...

I wonder if the following sentence is natural. If not, what's the natural way of expressing the idea?

I was taught to read in a mechanical way, without understanding the meaning.

The context is that when I was at school, the teacher of English told the class how to read English quickly, and then students read like a machine. We didn't think about the meanings of what we'd read.

The definition of ‘learning to read by rote’ would be your sentence.
I was taught to read by rote, without understanding the meaning.