Fix-up strategies for comprehension monitoring

Comprehension monitoring has two halves. The reader has to notice that meaning broke down, and then do something about it. Most students with reading disabilities struggle with the first half as much as the second. They read straight past a sentence that makes no sense, because they have learned that much of what they read does not make sense.

The routine below teaches noticing and fixing separately, then puts them together. Numbers in the worked example are illustrations. The cluster pillar on reading comprehension strategies shows how monitoring fits with the other strategies.

What the research guides say

The What Works Clearinghouse guide for grades 4 to 9 recommends teaching students to monitor their comprehension as they read, as one of a routine set of comprehension-building practices.^[1] The K to 3 guide lists monitoring, clarifying and fix-up among the strategies to teach explicitly.^[2] The National Reading Panel also identified comprehension monitoring as one of the strategies with a firm research base.^[3]

Check decoding before you teach fix-up

If a student misreads 1 word in 10, the text will stop making sense often, and the right fix is decoding instruction. Check accuracy on a short passage first. If it is below about 95%, lower the text level or read it aloud during strategy lessons. Comparing listening and reading comprehension is a quick way to see which barrier is bigger.

Teach the stop signal first

Before any fix-up list, the student needs a habit of noticing. Pick one signal: a sticky note placed on the line, a tap on the desk, or a pencil mark in the margin.

Practice with planted errors

Read short paragraphs aloud that include one sentence that does not fit. "Maria put on her heavy coat and gloves. The sun was blazing and it was 95 degrees. She shivered as she walked to the bus." The student signals when they hear the problem. Start with obvious contradictions, then move to subtler ones, such as a word used the wrong way or a missing step.

Move to the student's own reading

Next, the student reads text with planted problems and marks them. Then move to unaltered text and ask the student to mark any place they got confused. Accept honest marks. A student who marks nothing in a hard passage is not monitoring.

The fix-up list, in order

Teach the steps one or two at a time, then as a list on a card. Order matters: the quick steps come first.

1. Reread the sentence. Slowly, aloud if allowed. This fixes most slips.
2. Read ahead one or two sentences. The next sentence often explains the confusing one.
3. Look at the pictures, headings or captions. Text features often show what the words describe.
4. Work on the word. If one word is the problem, break it into parts, use context clues or check the glossary.
5. Retell the part so far. Say what you know in your own words. The gap shows what is missing.
6. Ask for help. Name the exact sentence or word: "I don't get what 'erosion' means here."

Model the list with a think-aloud

Read a passage aloud and stop on purpose. "Wait. It says the river carved the canyon. Rivers can't carve. Let me reread. Still confused. I'll read ahead: 'Over millions of years, the water wore away the rock.' Oh, carved means wore away slowly." Name each step as you use it.

Worked example: one student across 10 weeks

Student (fictional): Theo, grade 7, reads grade 5 text with about 97% accuracy. In social studies he finishes reading quickly and misses most questions. When asked where he got lost, he says "nowhere."

Baseline, February 3 to 7. Three probes, each a 300-word grade 5 passage with 4 planned stops. At each stop the teacher asked Theo to explain the last sentence. Where he could not, she asked what he would do. Theo noticed a breakdown and used a fitting fix-up step at 0, 1 and 1 of 4 stops. Median 1 of 4.

Goal. Given an unpracticed grade 5 informational passage with 4 planned stops, Theo will identify a confusing part and use a fix-up strategy that resolves it at 3 of 4 stops across 3 consecutive weekly probes. See the templates to use a fix-up strategy when meaning breaks down and to mark confusing parts and fix them.

Instruction. Three 20-minute sessions a week. Weeks 1 and 2: stop signal with planted errors. Weeks 3 to 6: fix-up steps 1 to 4, one at a time, on the card. Weeks 7 to 10: full list, card face down by week 9.

Theo caught planted errors well by week 2, but fixing lagged until he learned to read ahead. That pattern is common: noticing comes first, and fixing follows a few weeks later.

How to measure fix-up strategy use

Count opportunities. Each planned stop is one opportunity. Score 1 when the student either explains the part correctly or names a breakdown and uses a step that resolves it. Score 0 when the student explains it wrongly and does not notice.

Probe once a week with 4 to 5 stops. Record each on an opportunity data sheet with a note on which step the student used. That note tells you which steps to reteach. For students who listen to text with text-to-speech, the template to adjust text-to-speech and replay when meaning breaks down adapts the same idea.

Common mistakes

• Weak: Teaching the fix-up list before the student notices confusion. Better: Spend the first 2 weeks on the stop signal alone.
• Weak: "Reread" as the only strategy. Better: Teach reading ahead and checking features too. Rereading the same sentence three times rarely helps if the word is unknown.
• Weak: Asking "Did that make sense?" and accepting "yes." Better: Ask the student to explain the sentence in their own words.
• Weak: Planted-error practice for the whole year. Better: Move to real text by week 4. Planted errors teach noticing but do not show transfer.
• Weak: A goal that says "will use fix-up strategies when needed." Better: Name the passage, the stops and the criterion, as in Theo's goal.

Goals and related pages

Fix-up strategies connect to the self-questioning strategy: an unanswered question is a signal to fix. Younger students can start with the template to signal when a sentence does not make sense. For more goal wording, see the comprehension goals page, the reading comprehension strategies goal hub and IEP goals for reading comprehension. Check your draft with the goal checker.

Frequently asked questions

Use it in IEP Atlas

• Comprehension goals (reading)
• Reading comprehension strategies goal hub
• Use a fix-up strategy when meaning breaks down (goal template)
• Opportunities measurement guide
• Reading comprehension in the IEP glossary
• IEP goal checker

Related guides

• Reading comprehension strategies for struggling readers
• Reading comprehension IEP goal examples
• Types of comprehension questions and what each one measures
• Listening comprehension vs reading comprehension: telling them apart

Sources

1. Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9, What Works Clearinghouse, Institute of Education Sciences
2. Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, What Works Clearinghouse, Institute of Education Sciences
3. Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

Written and checked by the IEP Atlas editorial team under our editorial policy. This guide describes general practice and federal rules. It is not legal advice; your state may add requirements, and the IEP team makes the decisions for each student.