This totally makes sense to me. I've always been a very good / fast reader, which has been incredibly useful in my programming career. I had a good SAT math score (710) but got a perfect score (800) on the SAT verbal (in the late 90s).
I remember when I first started working on my Master's project on wireless sensor networks, my advisor sat me down and said "I think I know a good project for you. I want you to print out the source code for TinyOS, study it for a week, and come back to me when you think you know enough to make these changes." This was a sort of formative experience for me, and ever since when joining a new project I made sure to take the time to read through the code to understand how things fit together.
I remember when I first started working on my Master's project on wireless sensor networks, my advisor sat me down and said "I think I know a good project for you. I want you to print out the source code for TinyOS, study it for a week, and come back to me when you think you know enough to make these changes." This was a sort of formative experience for me, and ever since when joining a new project I made sure to take the time to read through the code to understand how things fit together.