How to teach fix-up strategies

Well, hello there! When you see one of these yellow boxes on my website, it usually means that I’ve adjusted my approach based on my research. Now that I understand the science of reading, I realize that “fix-up strategies” that are unrelated to phonics aren’t typically helpful.

Yes, kids can check their phonics by making sure what they read makes sense and sounds right, but the first thing they should be doing when reading a word is sounding it out.

(Is reading just about phonics? Certainly not! But kids must develop automaticity with decoding, and that’s hard to come by when we tell them to look at the picture when they approach an unfamiliar word.)

Since my original post encouraged teachers to direct kids to the picture when solving new words, I’ve decided to remove the post.

When we know better, we do better.

Want to connect with me and learn more about what I’ve learned about teaching reading? Feel free to contact me via the Contact tab.