Inferring

Making meaning of a text is one of the most important components of literacy. The students need to increase their thinking skills to better understand the text by inferring. Before reading a text, remind students that they can use story details and what they already know to infer a text. Ask them to look for clues as they are reading to help them answer questions on each page. While the students are reading, monitor and remind students of the comprehension strategies such as making connections and determining importance. After they have read the text, ask the students to think about the story they just read and visualize the place, the sounds, the smell, and the tastes that came to mind. For example, in the book "Midnight Rider" the young girl sneaks out of her house during winter and goes through a dirty, rat infested tunnel to get to another place. The students can hear the sounds around her, can smell the dirty old tunnel, can feel the cold, moist air, can taste the smog, and can see what that girl is seeing in the tunnel, which is only a small torch light and darkness. The students are able to be in the book walking through the tunnel with that girl. Students can make connections to what the girl was doing if they had read another book similar to that situation or if they had been in a dark place before such as the girl in the book.

Students can keep learning logs to record these connections in the story or record the different senses they connected with. It is impoartant that the students refer back to these activities before writing a summary. Other activities could be patterned reading or think-pair-share.

Below is a great website about srategies and skills that the students use: http://www.readinglady.com/Comprehension/Inferring/inferring.html