Reading Strategies Home

Fix Up Strategies

Use these “fix-up” strategies when you find out you don’t understand the text.  Excellent readers do this naturally.  Train yourself!

go back—go forward

This simply means to read the sentence, paragraph or section again.  After reading the text again, ask yourself if you understand the text.  If you do, keep reading.  If you don’t, then mark the text with a ? or V or try another fix-up strategy.

go forward & go back

This means to read a couple of words or sentences ahead.  Sometimes there are clues or examples that help a reader understand the difficult text.  After going forward…go back and read again then ask yourself if you understand the text.  If you don’t, then mark the text with a ? or V or try another fix-up strategy.

survey

This means to stop reading the text and look around!  Look at the pictures, graphs and their captions. Look at the different fonts like bold face and italicized type.  Look at the chapter title or sub-titles.  Sometimes this helps understand what is going on. 

word

attack

This really means to attack the word! 

1.  Sound out the word with your mouth (silently is ok)  Did you understand the word when you heard it?

2.  Look for any prefixes, suffixes or root words and ask yourself if they help you understand the word.

3.  Substitute a word you think is a synonym or antonym…ask yourself if that makes sense

stop, check and go

Excellent readers will actually stop reading and think about what they just read.  They will use this time to paraphrase, make relationships with the text, ask questions to themselves and then try to predict what will happen.  This is active reading and it helps readers understand the text better.

mark & go

?  V

Mark the text with a ? or a V for vocabulary and find out the word meaning later.  DO NOT EVER stop and get a dictionary while you are reading!   Use a dictionary or ask someone after you read the section.

Last updated on   © 2005  Frank Newman