Sounds like you're watering too quickly. When I'm running only a couple of plants I like to use a 2 liter water bottle with holes poked in the lid to water the plants. In a 7 gal cloth pot I'll sprinkle about a 1/4 liter over the entire surface and let it soak in for a few minutes. I water in another 1/2 liter and wait a few minutes more to allow capillary action to do its thing. If water starts coming out the side of the bag I'm watering too much at one time and I'll back off the amount and give it a little longer to soak into the soil. I continue watering a 1/2 liter at a time until I see runoff.
Another way to improve media saturation would be to use Matrix plates and pads from
FloraFlex. I use these on my automated system and they work great. I also used them for hand watering and got the same even saturation all the way down to the bottom of the pot
BTW IMO, soil meters are junk. They are only relevant to the couple inches around the probe. The only way I've seen soil meters actually work the way they should is to use multiple meters stuck through the side of the bag at different soil levels. As was mentioned, dry spot readings will give you false dry readings and raise the chances of overwatering. Light pot method has been the most reliable IMO.