It's weird - if I read it to him, he understands the vocabulary, but if he has to sound out words he doesn't recognize, he doesn't understand what he reads. It's like he's so caught up with the details of sounding out the words that he forgets what they mean. Literally can't see the forest for the trees. However, I noticed that he doesn't have that problem on easy books, so maybe we'll keep reading easy books and ratchet it up a notch book by book. (And EandCmom, the problem with the level 3 science books for him is that he is so "well-read" - at least well-read to - that the scholastic science books are too simple for him in terms of content. But I think you're right, I need to find something that peaks his interest so that he'll at least try to read it. Maybe we'll try Goosebumps.)
