Certain embodiments of the present invention are improved turbo-equalization methods for decoding encoded codewords. In one embodiment, in global decoding iteration i, the magnitude values of all decoder-input LLR values (Lch) are adjusted based on the number b of unsatisfied check nodes in the decoded codeword produced by global iteration i−1. The improved turbo-equalization methods can be used as the sole turbo-equalization method for a given global decoding session, or interleaved with other turbo-equalization methods.