A wireless communication device employs a method for receiving a message stream on a control channel. According to one embodiment, the wireless communication device receives a message on the control channel. The wireless communication devices attempts to decode the message and, if the message is successfully decoded, adds bits of the successfully decoded message to a message attributes list. Some time thereafter, the wireless communication device attempts to decode a subsequent message received on the control channel and, if an error is detected during decoding of the subsequent message, replaces bits in the subsequent message with bits from the message attributes list to produce a modified message. The wireless device then attempts to decode the modified message.