Inferring

I had to look at a lot of resources to clearly explain inferring.  Inferring, metaphor, theme, and culture are all concepts I understand fully, but the difference between understanding a concept you learned in 10th grade and mastered into your early(ish) twenties and teaching it to a 9-year-old is quite significant.  Also it's inferring, not inferencing.  Just found that out.


The cherubs in my class are having some trouble going beyond the text to think about why a character "really" did something or more importantly, why the author used the words he/she did.  It's tricky.  I had to backtrack and explicitly teach them what it means to think beyond just the words on the page.  It was a very easy lesson!


I started off with a mini-lesson of INFERRING skills.  Then we read the short story The Little Hatchet about a little boy and the older man babysitting him.  It's almost 100% dialogue and 4th grade is lucky enough to have literacy aides, so she and I did it Reader's Theater style.  The chickadees cracked up.  They listen intently and laugh at even the tiniest jokes and make my life absolutely complete.


We paused here and there during the read-aloud and recorded inferences.  Then we did more of that after the lesson.  Here are the two anchor charts I used to teach INFERRING, which I left up and referred to during the lesson.  Ignore how it says "inferencing", please.

Try not to be jealous of that magnifying glass.  I'm not even a trained artist.

I know.

I leave this up all the time.  Clear and simple.

I recorded inferences on this graphic organizer on the whiteboard.  The first column was text evidence, the second was prior knowledge, and the third was the inference.  Next time, I might flip it since the kids usually said the inference part first and we had to unpack it together.  However, doing it in this order kept the little equation I made consistent.  I used the same color for each inference and its information.