Strategies or techniques to learn piano sheet music?

Do you know any strategies or techniques that are used to read and learn the piano sheet music for faster and more efficiently? For example, there are things to do or focus on the first time it receives a new piece of music? As I plunge straight in and start playing from the beginning and go slowly and try to understand the notes I go along, because I’m not very good, just looking at a note and knowing only a fraction second later that the note is the piano.