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My six year old is like this. He can decode words even if he has no idea what the words mean. So if I gave him a college textbook he could read it and make it sound somewhat fluent but would have no idea what he's reading.
The answer is to give books at a level where the kid understands what the words mean. If they don't have the vocabulary, they are not going to understand the book. Pictures help because then if the kid doesn't understand a word, they can sometimes figure it out from the picture. But if there are too many foreign words, they will quickly lose interest.
DS is not particularly strong in verbal ability (probably borderline "gifted" at best) so comprehension is third-fourth grade if he reads to himself. I don't go any higher than that even though he could technically read something that's a higher level.
He is more of a math/non-verbal kid than verbal. I think he uses his non-verbal "pattern recognition" skills to decode but they also have to be strong in verbal ability in order to comprehend well above their age.

It sounds as if your son is excellent at decoding, which is very important.

One of my sons started reading extremely early, and was an avid read of non-fiction books. He was not really interested in reading fiction until very recently (almost 7 years old.) I know that he comprehended the non-fiction, because he would often explain it to me in detail, but we didn't spend much time with fiction books as he and his brother really preferred to be read non-fiction, and he almost never would choose to read fiction by himself. Verbally he has always been very much ahead, so vocabulary is not an issue for him.

This became an issue in Kindergarten, where the focus is on learning to decode, then on comprehension of fiction books. My son had a lot of trouble showing comprehension of fiction books/stories in Kindergarten, so I had quite a few conversations with the teacher and reading teacher regarding comprehension vs decoding. Once I found out what they wanted him to do, it wasn't an issue, but it took a while for ME to understand exactly what they wanted him to do (and they weren't telling him, so that was the problem.)

I can tell you what our school says regarding the steps they like to see in comprehension.

Once the children could decode the words well, they wanted to hear "retelling" of the entire story, using character names and details. And they truly mean retelling the entire story in detail, page by page.

Only after the children are able to retell the entire story easily and consistently do they move on to having them summarize the beginning, the middle, and the end. The next step is starting to discuss the setting, the characters, the plot, and the reason the author wrote the story. Once they can do that, they want them to be able to answer the questions in writing. This is the step my boys are currently on in 1st grade.

My twins' reading comprehension as measured by the school is mid-second grade, but our school won't really let anyone move more than a year ahead, so I am not sure what it would actually be if they were being taught the skills they need to move up in DRA levels more quickly. At home one reads middle school level and higher non-fiction, and the other reads probably at a 3rd-4th grade level.

I will say that both of my twins (almost 7) have just recently become more avid readers. One I find reading when he is supposed to be taking a bath, brushing his teeth, in the car, etc. He has finally found some fiction books that he likes to read, so now he mixes that in with the non-fiction. The other is starting to become more interested in reading on his own as well, but still prefers non-fiction. They both have to read at school every day, and then for homework, so there is quite a bit of "official" reading.


Edited to add - When we were trying to get them more interested in reading fiction, we tried very hard to find books they liked, and ended up reading books like "Captain Underpants." (But they were five- definitely not recommending this for a 3 year old.) The fiction books they would tolerate were definitely not literary in nature, but it was a good way to get them interested in fiction.

Thank you so much for the comic book recommendation - I am looking on our library website to see what I can scrounge up for DS. I wish there were more books with some kind of mathematical bent, because he definitely gravitates toward that sort of thing (not just counting to 10 or whatever). That or super silly books. Current favorites books are "Spoon" (major silliness - he yells out a high-pitched "spoooooooooon" every time the word appears, lol) and "The Lion's Share", a cute little book about sharing and fractions.

A related question: DS is so grounded in reality, that sometimes, I feel like it's hard for him to come up with pretend things. For example, when I ask him "so, what do you think the fox's in this story's favorite food would be?" a lot of times, his response is, "I don't know, what is it?" like he is looking to be given the RIGHT answer, you know? And I try to explain that there IS no right answer, we are just making it up, and whatever he thinks is fine, but it's a hard concept for him to wrap his head around. (Though oddly, he can make up stories about number people swimming in the Arctic which is x miles deep, sliding on a big rainbow slide, and having fun talking about their lucky numbers etc etc. ...I'm not sure where the flip is in that respect, tbh.)

Does anyone else see this? Especially with their young math/science kids?

My DS is the oppposite. Very very high comprehension - lower decoding especially relative to his comprehension. We have a situation where the books he could read were completely insipid for him. Things are evening out now with his decoding ability getting somewhat more in lie with his interest and comprehension level. But there is still a big gap. It has been a great source of frustration. I am wondering if reading aloud to a child a lot helps comprehension becasue we are always reading (still do) reading books to DS way, way above-level. So basically he physcially reads every day, and every night we read to him and we discuss a book that is well-above his level.

Irena, fwiw, our children's elementary school teachers (in three different schools) always told parents that the *number 1* way to raise comprehension in early elementary students was to read *to* them, no matter what their reading level or decoding ability was. I don't know that they have any research to back them up, but it's a widely accepted theory around here. We have been encouraged to not only read aloud to our children when they are young, but to continue to do so as they get older, on into middle school. I don't know if it helped two older kids with comprehension, because once they could read each of them has always been ahead of the game in comprehension. Our third dd, however, is dyslexic, and we've been told by the professionals who diagnosed her reading challenges and her reading tutors that it's important that she *practices* reading at her decoding level but that we also make sure we read aloud to her and that she has access (as much as possible) to audio books at a much higher level so she can build on her comprehension abilities.

polarbear

First of all, it is very normal for kids that age to acquire decoding skills first and then become more fluent and comprehend better. At that age, my DS was decoding very advanced language, but comprehending 2-3 years ahead. Now, at age 6, his fluency, reading comprehension and decoding are in sync.

What polarbear says is correct - reading comprehension and listening comprehension are somehow related. So, if you keep reading books that are way above the child's reading level and also let them listen to audiobooks and radio talks (NPR etc) and then engage them in discussions about them, it helps the comprehension level to shoot up. In our case, I have limited time, so I read literature classics out loud to DS every day and keep him immersed in a language rich environment - we listen to NPR, audiobooks, DH reads non-fiction to him and I sometimes read newspaper editorials to him. In restaurants, we hand DS the menu and have him read the whole thing and then make his choice. Same with the maps, tickets and brochures when we travel. We hand him a map and ask him to figure out directions to picnic areas, restrooms etc. When we buy anything new with an instruction manual, DS loves to read them and look at the diagrams and he tries to understand how it is put together and how to operate it. And when we drive, we ask him to spot for signs and storefronts. Somehow, all these things helped his comprehension quickly catch up to his reading ability.

My ds14 is a math/science kid and yes, he was very much like this at a young age. I can't tell you if it's typical or not though - my ds has an expressive language disorder, and for him, it's wrapped up in that but it wasn't obvious until he was older and farther along in school. To this day he would have trouble coming up with "what do you think was the fox's favorite food". I am not putting that out there as a suggestion that your ds has any type of challenge, just that I can't really say - oh yes, my very math/scienc-y kid is just like that and it's because he's more into math/science. As he's gotten older and moved along in school, and as my youngest (who is also very math/scienc-y) has gotten older, I've seen lots of math/science kids who have incredibly creative thinking and ability to express it and wouldn't have any problem coming up with a story about what the fox liked to eat. Soooo... while it's nothing that by itself I would even pay attention to, if you are seeing other things that might point to some type of challenge I would think through whether or not this might be related.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Some kids don't really develop beyond literalism (which is what I'd term that-- not necessarily "reality" oriented, so much as not really wrapping their heads around extensions into the possible/imaginary FROM a starting point).

Kids in that stage may well have great imaginary play, etc. even-- but they don't necessarily go with external cues or anything. So "pretend that this is a telescope" may seem strange unless they initiate it themselves.

Kids like that find metaphors puzzling and will ask about idiom and metaphorical language, too.

Even in normal development, this kind of thing is normative up to a point in development-- where they begin to think more abstractly after developing complete theory-of-mind. Normal development places this about 4 yo, I think?

My son who was an early reader is very into math and science, and was given negative feedback in K because of this type of thing. He is very creative at home, and comes up with complex, long-term pretend scenarios that go on for weeks/months, but if asked what a snowman would do at night after reading a story about snowmen coming alive he won't give the expected creative answer. He just wouldn't play along- not at all.

I asked him about it last year after his teacher told me in a parent/teacher conference that he wasn't creative and couldn't pretend (because of the snowman incident), and he said it just seemed ridiculous to him.

Both of my children took stories very seriously. The tv show SuperWhy on PBS freaked them out as toddlers because they didn't like that the characters CHANGED the story.

So I don't know - he had an imaginary friend from 2-4 years old who he talked about so much and in such great detail that on more than one occasions over the years his preschool teachers actually thought I had another child. And even today, at almost 7, he has made up a pretend country, complete with a pretend government, customs and laws that he talks about a lot.

So if a child lies about things, does that mean they have a theory of mind? I remember hearing that it's actually good when a child starts lying, because it means that they are developing cognitively. DS was around 4, I think DD was younger.

My mathy decoder loves non-fiction or anything that is as stupid as possible. So Captain Underpants, The Dumb Bunnies, any kind of joke book. Teacher says that of all the kids in the class, he's the one who really laughs at the humor in books and appreciates things the other kids don't get.

But he doesn't really like fiction that much. Or it could just be an aversion to anything that doesn't have pictures on every single page.
He read a fiction chapter book the other day with hardly any pictures, without me asking or nagging, all on his own. I was shocked. It just takes some kids longer I think. And others will never really get into fiction.