7year old Struggling with comprehension

[Meme2019]

Looking for tips/strategies for helping my son. My son is in year 3, his reading is excellent, but lacks comprehension and is really struggling.

Anyone else have experience of this and any tips you can offer.

Read stories with him. After a couple of paragraphs stop and ask him questions about the text.
Why do you think she did that? If he's right, ask him, how did you work that out?
Or did you think that bit was scary? Why?
Or what do you think will happen next? (If he gets it right ask him, how did you guess that;s what would happen next?')
Also ask him what unusual words mean. If he doesn't know, ask him to guess. If he's right ask what clues helped him.

Give him lots of praise if he is right about anything and if he gets things wrong, just say, let's see if we're right. Oh no, it's actually this not that. If he doesn't know a word, look it up on your phone or in a dictionary (as if you didn;t know it either and you are curious.) Try without overdoing it to make it seem a bit like detective work.

That's what I did with my two and it helped them with comprehension. (Also got them reading as they never wanted to read by themselves but were happy to snuggle up and be read to, and then maybe read a paragraph to me.)

Thank you very much @afternoonspray

Agree with everything afternoonspray says. Both my boys have struggled a bit with comprehension. With DS1 I didn't do nearly enough of this, until it was a bit too late. With DS2 I have, and it's made a huge difference. One thing I'd add, is to try doing some word derivation stuff while you're reading too. So, if you come across the word 'inspect', you can talk about the similarities with prospect, and perspective, and circumspect, and how anything with 'spect' means 'look'. That way, it's easier to remember meanings and to guess the meaning of new words. Oh, if only all children did Latin....

Oh, and it's massively helpful with spelling, too!

Try modelling thought processes when you read stories together. For example 'hmm sounds like the girl is angry'. Etc. If there are words he might not understand make sure you go over them. You could also try asking him what he thinks will happen next. Read a variety of different texts and ask him to identify who the text is intended for etc. If he cant/doesn't like answering questions think aloud yourself.