what is the best way to learn how to read chinese characters?

To read and understand Chinese characters:
Chinese characters is a lot like puzzles. Each character can be made up of many smaller characters. Usually if you know the general idea of the smaller characters, you will have a better idea of the whole character.

For example, "火" is fire, so words like 灰, 灶, 炎, 炒, 炬, 炭, etc. (all contain the word 火, so you know it has something to do with fire and heat). 炎 = what happens if you put two fire together? Things burn and become scorching hot. 炎 means "scorching and burning hot.

So one of the best way to learn how to read Chinese characters is to break it up into smaller characters and start with learning the smaller characters first.

To read and pronounce Chinese characters
Sometimes you can sort of guess the pronunciation based on the smaller characters. But most of the time, you'll have to memorize each character's pronunciation. This is where Chinese movie subtitles and karaoke comes in handy.

do you really expect someone will show you the shortcut having crossed out personal experience of climbing the edges?...
funny and naive...
however, i'll hint... there is no best way...
different ways work for different people...
traditionally people memorize them...
you can't read them letter by letter as in English... t-r-a-v-e-l...
in Chinese it's "you see and you name it"...
so image go with sounds... together...