Блики мешают читать.

Блики is the plural of блик.

In this sentence, it usually means glare, light reflections, or bright spots of reflected light that make reading difficult—for example, on a screen, glossy paper, or glass.

So блики is not one single beam of light, but multiple reflections / patches of glare.

Because блики is plural, and the verb agrees with it.

• блик мешает = the reflection/glare spot interferes
• блики мешают = the reflections/glare interfere

So the pattern is:

• singular subject → мешает
• plural subject → мешают

After мешать, Russian often uses an infinitive to say that something prevents, hinders, or makes it hard to do an action.

So:

• Блики мешают читать.
  = The glare makes reading difficult.

Literally, this is something like:

• Reflections interfere with reading.

This is a very common structure in Russian:

• шум мешает работать = noise makes it hard to work
• свет мешает спать = the light makes it hard to sleep

Yes, мешать often takes the dative of the person affected:

• Блики мешают мне читать.
  = The glare prevents me from reading / makes it hard for me to read.

In your sentence, the dative person is simply left out because it is understood or unimportant.

So:

• Блики мешают читать. = The glare makes reading difficult.
• Блики мешают мне читать. = The glare makes it hard for me to read.

Both are natural.

Because читать is the imperfective form, and here the sentence talks about the general activity of reading, not finishing one specific text.

• читать = to read, to be reading, to read in general
• прочитать = to read through, to finish reading

In this sentence, the idea is:

• The glare interferes with reading
  not
• The glare interferes with finishing one specific thing

So читать is the normal choice.

Yes. The verb мешать covers ideas like:

• to interfere
• to bother
• to hinder
• to get in the way
• to make something difficult

So depending on context, Блики мешают читать could be translated naturally as:

• The glare makes it hard to read.
• The reflections interfere with reading.
• The glare is getting in the way of reading.

Here блики is in the nominative plural, because it is the subject of the sentence.

The basic structure is:

• блики = subject
• мешают = verb
• читать = infinitive

So literally:

• Reflections interfere to-read
  which becomes natural English as
• The glare/reflections make it hard to read.

Yes. Russian word order is flexible.

The neutral order here is:

• Блики мешают читать.

But other orders are possible for emphasis, for example:

• Читать мешают блики.
  = It’s the glare that is making reading difficult.

This sounds more emphatic or contrastive. The original sentence is the most straightforward and neutral.

The stress is:

• блИки
• мешАют
• читАть

So roughly:

• BLI-kee me-SHA-yut chee-TAT’

A more approximate English-friendly guide:

• блИки → BLEE-kee
• мешАют → mee-SHA-yoot
• читАть → chee-TAT’

The final ть in читать is soft.

Yes, it can be very natural, especially when talking about reflections on a screen, glass, or shiny surface.

Depending on context, Russian might also use words like:

• блики = reflections / glare spots
• отблески = gleams, reflected flashes
• яркий свет = bright light
• блеск экрана or other context-specific wording

But Блики мешают читать is a normal and natural sentence if you mean reflected light making reading difficult.

Russian often does not use a dummy subject like English it.

English says:

• It is hard to read.

Russian can simply say:

• Трудно читать.
• Блики мешают читать.

So Russian does not need an equivalent of English grammatical it here. The sentence works perfectly without one.