I need some help. My DS is 6 years old. He's been reading since his 3rd birthday. When he was young he could read for very long periods - he read Harry Potter at aged 4. Around this time he developed ADHD (he also has ASD) and there was a noticable change in his ability to read for long length of time.

He decodes and comprehends at the same level, but we dont know what that is because he's never been tested on levels etc. Its high though. He scored in the 150's on the WJ reading sections.

Now comes my problem - Ive been buying him books that interest him that are digestable as he likes to read the whole book in one sitting, things like small chapter books (my weird school, magic tree house etc) but ive noticed a disinterest of recent times.

Today I bought him one of these books about an adventure in the amazon rainforest because he was interested. On our 5 min drive home he read the entire thing. Thinking that he must have skipped pages (beause it is about 50 pages) and I thought it would be impossible, I asked him about 20 questions from the book and he got all of them correct.

Now I am left stumped and Id love some suggestions. He finds full size novels too much and he loses interest but he told me that he needs books for older kids and I agree.

He loves animals, geography and history. Any non fiction I can buy adult level stuff and he will sit forever and read it. This is only a problrm with fiction.

Any suggestions of good books or how to tackle this would be wonderful!

1) Keep him well stocked in non-fiction. Nothing wrong with reading lots of non-fiction.

2) Look for Chapter Books where each chapter is an individual story. Books like Mrs Piggle Wiggle, Pippy Longstockings, Dr. Doolittle.

3) Read longer chapter books with him. I read to both my kids well past the age they could read to themselves. We usually read at bedtime approx. a chapter a night on a story that he wasn't willing to read to himself.

4) Try magazines. National Geographic Kids, or even the adult version was very popular in this house.

In K & 1st my son would only read non-fiction or more advanced picture books. His decoding skills were excellent and he could read anything. But he didn't have the attention span/intrested in reading chapter books. One thing to keep in mind is that many picture books are a higher lexile level and have a more challenging vocabulary than many early readers.

Don't forget to go to the library and borrow books where you can. When your son reads so quickly it can get expensive very fast to buy all these books.

I think it's common for kids with ASD to not be interested in fiction and have a much lower level of comprehension with fiction than non-fiction. The more advanced fiction has a lot of relationship themes that even "typical" 6 year old children would find hard to understand.

His interest level is probably outgrowing these books. If he devoured the tree house on Amazon rainforest in 5 minutes, he is probably likes fiction but may be ready to jump to more challenging books. Maybe try Geronimo Stilton novels, Encyclopedia Brown (short stories but a little more meaty), or maybe some of the illustrated classics like Swiss Family Robinson...

Definitely enjoy your local library to save your wallet for books he checks out three times or more...

In addition to the above suggestions, Jigsaw Jones or A to Z Mysteries are both similar length to the Magic Tree House, but aimed a little bit older. Also the Magic School Bus chapter books, which somewhat cross-over the fiction/ non-fiction line.

He might like George's Secret key to the universe (and sequels) which are collaborative books by Lucy and Stephen Hawking. They are fiction and science integrated. More like science with a story to move it along.

I also agree with the read to him idea. You can take turns where you read a page or two and he reads to you a page or two or read the whole thing. I was always able to draw my younger son in by reading to him at night. (Two exceptions...Narnia series and Freddy goes to FL...he just didn't like them at all in first or second grade. He never went back to Freddy but his 4th grade teacher got him hooked on Narnia).

One thing I found would happen is that if I got him hooked sometimes he would finish it on his own on the sly.

But reading to him will show him how you can read two or three chapters and then set it aside. When you pick it up the next night you can model remembering what big events happened first, second, next and if you need to read the last paragraph from the night before to get yourself back "up to speed". Sometimes my husband would fill in for me one night, the next night my son had to tell me what I missed...sneaky way to teach him summarizing.

Read aloud time I taught my kids how to skim. One of mine would have a crying fit if his bookmark fell out so I taught him how to estimate where he thought he was and to read the first paragraph of each chapter until he found his place. No more crying and moaning if he lost his place because I had modeled it for him.

Also have you seen the sticky thread in the Recommended Resources forum, with a list of Book recommendations: age 6-8?