Making Inferences while Reading
How to Read Between the Lines
Making inferences is an important comprehension skill. Students have to draw conclusions from ordinary events in their lives, and they also have to learn to figure out what an author implied, or didn’t write.
Making Inferences Lesson Plan
Objectives
Students will match information from ordinary events with what they already know to understand why, when, where, and how an event took place.
Students will read between the lines, or infer, what the author is implying in a newspaper article, book, or magazine.
Materials
- pencil
- paper
- copies of passages
- newspaper articles
- textbooks
- copies of sentences
Practice Inferring What Happened
Bring a potted plant to the front of the room. Ask a student to bring a container of water. When the student brings the water, ask the class to guess why you asked for the water. When the students guess that you want to water the plant, tell them that they knew what you were going to do with the water because they already knew that plants need water and that people give them water.
Use other examples from your class to give your students practice inferring what happened or will happen.
Tell students that they make guesses about things that are happening around them every day. Even though they haven’t seen what happened, they can make guesses that are correct. These guesses are called inferences.
Readers Guess, Draw Conclusions
Tell them that sometimes the author doesn’t say everything that he wants them to know. Sometimes he expects the reader to guess, infer, or draw conclusions about what he means by matching what they already know with what he does say.
Write this paragraph on the dry erase board.
- One summer day Joe and Ann were paddling their canoe. They planned to spend the day fishing and looking for wildlife. They had heard that sometimes dolphins swam up the creek. Suddenly there was a big splash in the water in front of their canoe. Then they knew that what they had heard was true.
Ask the students to guess what probably happened. When someone guesses that a dolphin jumped out of the water, ask how she guessed. Tell students that the author gave these clues: “sometimes dolphins swam up the creek,” and “something jumped out of the water.” He didn’t tell the readers that Joe and Ann saw a dolphin, but he gave his readers clues so they could guess.
Ask what the students can infer about Joe and Ann from the passage. Students could guess that Joe and Ann like to be outdoors. They like to look for wildlife.
Give students copies of this passage:
- They made sure everyone was wearing long pants, long-sleeved shirts, and socks before they pulled up at the lodge. They noticed that the two men working on the grounds in front of the lodge were wearing nets around their heads and necks and hands.
Ask for guesses about what the author wants the reader to know but isn’t saying.
When someone gives an answer about mosquitoes or other pests, ask them how they solved the puzzle. They used what they already knew about covering up or wearing nets to infer that the place had insects or pests of some kinds.
Continue asking students to make inferences about events that happen in and out of the classroom. Give them practice reading passages similar to the ones above, and walk around the room when students are using their textbooks or newspaper articles, guiding individual students to make inferences.
Making Inferences Assessment
Give students copies of a newapaper that implies but does not state several things that the author wants them to know. Tell them to write the information that is not stated in the article. Check to see that all students are able identify implied imformation.
Direct Instruction and Practice
Students already know how to make inferences from ordinary events. They need direct instruction and plenty of practice in order to read between the lines of newspaper articles, magazines, or books. When they have learned to connect the dots between what they already know and what they see in pictures or read in stories their reading comprehension will improve.
Guess
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