1. Fix-Up Strategies Sample Problems and Solutions
Cueing System Sample Problem Sample Solutions
Grapho-Phonic System :
recognizing that letters have
associated sounds and knowing
how to pronounce and blend those
sounds to decipher unknown words
Difficulty pronouncing words  Teaching children to sound the word out by
identifying beginning and ending sounds,
attempting a word, then checking to see if the
sounds heard as the word was pronounced match
the letters in the text
 Point and slide – a technique where children use a
finger to gradually reveal the letters in a word,
saying the sound that is associated with each letter
as it is revealed until the word is pronounced
 Children become independent by attempting a
pronunciation of a word and asking themselves, Do
the letters match the sounds?
Lexical or Orthographic System:
Instantaneous word recognition
 Difficulty recognizing a word
when it is seen in a text
other than the one in which
it was originally learned
 Difficulty recognizing a
different form of a word,
e.g., a contraction, root word
with an affix, or a compound
word
 Demonstrating the various graphic word
representations of a single word, showing children
how a single word may look quite different in their
own writing and in various books
 Helping children to look for words in the
surrounding text they do recognize – do those
words give clues as to what an unknown word
might be?
 Word analysis: What does the prefix, suffix, root
word mean? Is it a compound word? Do you
recognize the words that combine to make the
longer word?
 Children become independent by recognizing
different forms of the same word and dissecting
word parts to support recognition of a new form of
the word
Syntactic System: Understanding
the correct structure or
architecture of written or spoken
language; the ability to recognize
when language is not structured
correctly
Substituting a word that disrupts
the meaning of the passage, e.g.,
horse for house in the sentence
“My family is building a new
house.”
 The teacher models how she recognizes correct
syntactic arrangement of words. She asks herself,
Does this sound like language?
 Children are encouraged to read aloud and ask
themselves, Does this sound like language?
 Children are taught how to stop reading when
something doesn’t sound right, adjust their rate of
reading, and reread asking themselves, Does it
make better sense if I read faster or slower?
 Children are taught to use language conventions
like periods, commas, quotation marks, semicolons
as markers of meaning. When they read, they are
encouraged to exaggerate the pause for a comma
or period, for example, to support clearer meaning
 Children study different syntactic styles used by
authors to achieve different effects, e.g., when
does an author use short, syncopated sentences vs.
longer sentences? What type of effect is achieved
with each?

2. Semantic System: The recognition
that words and longer pieces of text
have associated meanings and
concepts, and that those meanings
vary slightly from reader to reader;
the conceptual meanings can vary
from concrete to abstract
Reading words fluently, but
experiencing difficulty defining
what is meant by a word,
sentence, or text
 Children are encouraged to stop, consider a
word that would make sense in the context,
insert that word, and ask themselves, Does it
make sense?
 Children are encouraged to stop, reread, read
ahead, and otherwise use the context to confirm
the meaning of passage; stop yourself when it
doesn’t make sense: try to ask questions of the
book, the author, synthesize or retell what is
happening so far, what the author’s major points
are
Schematic System: The reader’s
prior knowledge used to
comprehend text. Schema is built
and/or activated from long-term
memory stores when relevant in a
reading experience. Schema also
refers to the ways – the categories
and classification – in which
information is stored and retrieved
from memory
Inadequate background
knowledge or difficulty in
activating background
knowledge
 Children are encouraged to stop, ask themselves
what they already know that is like what this
author is trying to communicate
 They are encouraged to create a visual image in
their minds and ask themselves, What is
happening here? How can I draw conclusions,
make judgments, assume a critical stance to try
to understand subtle points?
 Children are encouraged to imagine the author
and consider what he or she had in mind when
writing
 Children are encouraged to ask themselves what
they know about this author that might help
them comprehend
 Children are encouraged to ask themselves what
they know about the text format itself, what is
often true of social studies or science text
formats
Pragmatic System: provides
information about the purposes
and needs the reader has while
reading; governs what the reader
needs to understand
 Lack of purpose for reading,
perception that text is not
interesting or useful
 A setting that prohibits
interaction with other
readers to construct
meaning collectively
 Children are asked to consider what they need
to know in order to understand the text
 Children are encouraged to ask what is most
important from the text in relation to their
purpose for reading
 Children are encouraged to consider working
with another person to discuss, write about,
sketch, or act out pieces of the text in order to
better comprehend it
Mosaic of Thought p. 201-204