We had a very similar problem in K this year, and it was keeping my son from moving up in reading levels. The books they were sending home were level one readers, and at home my son reads middle school/high school level science books, and beginner chapter books. He was becoming incredibly frustrated, as he wasn't progressing in school, and found the books to be incredibly boring. After much discussion with him, I set up a meeting with the reading teacher and his classroom teacher to discuss the situation. They informed me that although he had excellent "decoding" skills, he wasn't comprehending the books. I knew this wasn't the case, as he frequently tells me in detail about things he has learned from reading his science books, and he loves to tell me about the books he chooses. I asked to see the evaluation sheet so that I could see what it was they wanted him to do, and it turned out they wanted an extremely detailed retell. He was basically supposed to retell every page of the book, or almost every detail. However, they had never told him that, as the reading specialist only works with kids who are behind or at grade level, but not ahead. As far as they were concerned, they didn't care if he moved up in reading at all this year, as he was already where he needed to be for K.
However, the whole situation was starting to make him very anxious, as he just couldn't understand why they kept saying he didn't have good comprehension skills, and really didn't comprehend why he was the only one in the class not changing levels. It really mattered a lot to him.
He and I had a long talk after my meeting, in which he told me he wasn't paying attention while reading those stories because they were "so boring." I explained that he had to prove he could do it, in order to the get higher level books that he wanted, and that he had to pay attention to the story even if it was something he was not at all interested in reading. And then we practiced every night - he would retell the story in incredible detail, and I let him use the book if needed. When they tested him two weeks later (much earlier than they had told me he would be retested) he passed with flying colors.
