First of all, we would like to stress that reading, reciting and memorizing the Qur’an entails a great reward. That is why every Muslim is encouraged to enliven his relationship with the Book of Allah as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is reported to have said: “The one who recites Qur’an while being proficient in it (that is, he knows its rules of recitation because he has already memorized it) will be the companion of the righteous honorable scribes (of Angels). The one who recites it while finding it difficult to recite (because he has not memorized it but he tries his best to recite correctly), will have two rewards.”
Dr. Rif`at Fawzi, former head of the department of Shari`ah at Cairo University, states the following: “First of all, I would like to stress that the recitation is part of reading, and hence there is no contradiction between the two. There are many Qur’anic verses and Prophetic hadiths talking about the importance of recitation and reading and the reward that a Muslim gets as a result. However, recitation is naturally a progressive stage that usually comes after many attempts of reading, and this may explain why the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was first ordered to ‘READ’ and then to
‘RECITE’. Thus, he was ordered to read the Qur’an and to repeat it after the Gabriel in the early days of the Divine Revelation, and then with the elapse of time he and his followers were ordered to recite the Qur’an.
In short, the order to ‘read’ the Qur’an was in the early beginning, and after the revelation of so many Qur’anic verses and chapters came the order of ‘recitation’. All in all, there is no contradiction between reading and recitation as far as the points raised in the question are concerned.”
Last but not least, we should clarify that the translation referred to in the question is correct with the word ‘read’ not recite as the Arabic original verse is read ‘iqra’ which means to read; whereas the word ‘recite’ equals ‘rattel’ in Arabic. Thus, there is no mistranslation.