David+White

**Comprehension Strategy: Inferring**

 * Making inferences from the cover, illustrations, and text**
 * Before starting, make a chart with two columns. Label one column "Quote or picture from the text" and the other one "Inference."
 * Explain to students that good readers make inferences when they read. Inferences are ideas that you get from thinking about something that is probably true about a story. The reader combines what he/she already knows from experience with what the book says or shows to make an inference.
 * In our group, we discussed the difference between inferences and predictions. While we agreed that they are different, we never really came to a consensus. I will venture that a prediction requires an inference, but an inference is not always about the future or "what will happen" in a story. The example we used in class was from a pop-up book about knights. By looking at the cover and seeing knights in armor, I can make the inference that knights probably did things that were dangerous because of what I already know about the purpose of armor. I could also use that inference to make a prediction about the story: I bet a knight is going to fight someone/something (hopefully a dragon!). However, a simple observation is not an inference. It requires no personal knowledge to look at a picture of a knight on a horse and comment that knights ride horses. Here's my point: If you're practicing making inferences as a comprehension strategy, predictions are okay, but you would want to direct students to move beyond only making observations.
 * Guide students in the process by making an inference based on the cover of a book (like the above knight example) and record the picture/text and inference in appropriate columns.
 * After one or two more picture-based inferences, guide students through one based on a passage.
 * Have the students help you make some inferences out loud as a class, then let them loose to make some inferences on their own or in groups.
 * After a specific time period, say in the five to seven minute range, have a spokesperson from each group bring back their examples of "quotes or pictures from text" and the "inferences" they drew from their observations of said text and/or picture. This should provide a baseline assessment for the teacher that at least someone in each group "got" the general idea.