Read parameter estimation techniques are provided that obtain information from multiple read operations to customize read parameters for data recovery. One method comprises performing the following steps, in response to a decoding failure of a codeword of the memory: obtaining at least three read values of the codeword; calculating a signal counts metric value from the at least three reads; computing an optimal reference voltage offset from the signal counts metric and a correlation between optimal reference voltage offsets and a signal counts metric associated with the memory; determining a new center read reference voltage based on a current center reference voltage and the optimal reference voltage offset and performing at least one subsequent read of the codeword following the decoding failure utilizing the new center read reference voltage.