Making Inferences
Use your mind to read!
What are you thinking?
©Teachers For Teachers in Collaboration with Marcia
Uretsky. All rights reserved.
Unit of Study: Making Inferences
Prior Knowledge
What prior knowledge about reading
strategies do students need to have
before entering this Unit of Study?
Definition
What is inferring? How do readers
talk about it?
Concepts to Teach
What are the important concepts
that you will teach within this Unit
of Study?
Activating background knowledge about topic, author and
genre (schema)
§ Retelling
§ Making connections
§ Monitoring for meaning
§ Asking questions
An inference is something that is probably true. You take
the evidence in the text, combine it with your background
knowledge, and make a theory about what you think is
probably true. That’s an inference.
1. Using dramatic action to define inferring
2. Inferring in real life/Reacting to a text
3. Inferring with wordless books
4. Recording our inferences
5. Inferring with song lyrics
6. Inferring with picture books
7. Inferring with text without
illustrations
8. Inferring by using text features
while previewing
9. Inferring the setting
10. Inferring by making predictions
11. Inferring with poems
12. Inferring about characters
13. Inferring about characters – Part II
14. Inferring about theme
15. Inferring the meaning of unfamiliar
words
16. Inferring the meaning of unfamiliar
words – informational text
17. Inferring to answer questions
18. Inferring to draw conclusions
19. Inferring the author’s intent
20. Using an H-chart to record your
comparisons
21. Inferring to compare and
contrast themes
22. Inferring to compare and
contrast character traits
23. Inferring to compare and contrast
author’s opinions
24. Inferring a common conflict
25. Readers infer in combination with other
reading strategies
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©Teachers For Teachers in Collaboration with Marcia Uretsky.
All rights reserved.
2
Unit of Study: Making Inferences
Anchor Charts
Ways to Record
Thinking
Graphic Organizers, Postits, Journals
Reader’s Workshop
Conference Points
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What is an Inference?
Venn Diagram – The intersection of meaning
3-column chart
H- chart
Ways to Talk About our Inferences
Making Predictions Chart
Character Chart
T- Chart
Inferring the Meaning of Unknown Words (Three Column Chart)
Post-its
Reader’s notebook
T-chart
Written responses
Turn and talk conversations
Read aloud/Book club conversations
What kind of person is the character in your book?
What clues / evidence from the text help you know that?
What do you predict will happen next?
Why do you think that?
What inferences have you made while reading today?
Did you come to any tricky words in this book?
Show me how you figured out the meaning of the word.
Have you made any inferences about the characters in your book?
What are you thinking? What makes you think that?
Look at this picture. How does the illustrator help you know what
this character is feeling?
Look at this picture. How does the illustrator help you know what
this character is thinking or feeling?
Did you feel something today while you were reading?
Take me to a place where you made an inference. What were you
thinking as you read that? What evidence in the text made you
think that?
As you look over your chart, which inferences are still true and
which have changed?
What do you think the setting?
Use this 3-column chart to explain what clues in the text and what
background knowledge you used to make you come to that
conclusion.
What do you think the author is trying to teach you?
Show me how you can record your thinking on the chart.
What do you think the theme or message of this text is?
How do you know? What evidence in the text makes you think
that?
©Teachers For Teachers in Collaboration with Marcia Uretsky.
All rights reserved.
3
Unit of Study: Making Inferences
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Evidence of Understanding
and Independence
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Journal responses tracking thinking about inferences.
Ø I think____ is probably true because….”
Ø Maybe it means_____. I think this because….”
Ø I predict______. I think this because.”
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Written reflection – An inference is…
Interactive Read Aloud Response – oral discussion and stop
and jot.
Small group discussions.
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Author Study Celebration
Genre Study Celebration
Theme Study Celebration
Character Study Celebration
(Oral and written)
Celebrations of Learning
How does the setting change this story?
What evidence do you have to support your thinking?
Did you make inferences about the characters in your book?
What words in the text helped you to make that inference?
How has the author let you know that about the character?
What were you thinking when you read this passage?
Is there a question you are wondering about in your
reading?
What do you think might be the answer? What do you
infer?
What clues from the text help you think that? What in your
background knowledge makes you think that?
What do you think the author’s message/intent is?
What are you inferring?
What is the author’s opinion? What makes you think that?
Do the articles have the same or different opinions? How
do you know?
What are you thinking? What makes you think that?
©Teachers For Teachers in Collaboration with Marcia Uretsky.
All rights reserved.
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