Hi Mr. Eric D. Kirk,
You might have a media storage drive that is not 7200RPM and that can be the problem. I use only 7200RPM drives or SSD. Premiere Pro does real time playback fine for me. You could also be using media files that are too huge for the specs of your computer system to deal with. It helps that you post some facts along with your questions like this one. Post the type and specs of your media storage device, the specs of your computer such as the amount of memory, processor speed, graphics card, and free space on the hard drive, operating system.
best,
sheila