This is the root of the problem: what you defined is thinking (conceptualization), not reading. When you teach a child to walk, you do not even bother with meaningfulness of that ability, how it will be used and for what purpose. That will come later; for now, you just help the child to learn to walk. The same is with counting: when you teach it, do you bother with the question of meaning here? I hope not.
Reading is about mechanical intake of information. How that information is processed is an altogether different part of education.
I beg to differ. Ask yourself what is the purpose of reading. We read merely to complete communication. Without the communication aspect there is no reason to read. Thus, reading must include comprehension of the message we are decoding.