Inferring Matters
Consolidating an Understanding of Inferences (Virtual Tour)
Stage of Literacy Development:
Stage 3: Literacy for GrowthAges:
9-12
Grade Range:
4th 5th 6thFood Groups:
Primary: Reading Comprehension Strategies
Transcript
The board we are standing in front of now is the board that demonstrates or visualizes our current unit of study. In this case we are currently studying inferring with the class. To start our unit of study, we firstly look at different text and start to discuss as a group, how we're going to infer meaning from each of the text. We identify five different strategies as a group, and for each of the strategies we look at a different text and try to employ each of the strategies into our understanding of inferring and use that strategy to make inferences as we read the text. Five strategies that the students and I identified as quality inferring strategies are context clues, text clues, asking guiding questions, understanding the meaning of language and inferring themes in the stories and the fiction and non-fiction stories that we read. For each of the strategies we employ, we choose different text. Starting from the beginning we do focus on non-fiction text. I find it easier for students to pull information and make inferences and determinations about what they are reading. As we get deeper into the year, one of the authors we study is Eve Bunting and we read several books by Eve Bunting to take a look at how we can start to employ these strategies. The reasons that I chose these books for the students is that I feel the students really connect with these books. Bunting's stories tend to be historical fiction, about fictitious characters who experience things that actually happened in our history. For example, in the story of Cheyenne Again, the character, a native North American is placed in a residential school. I find that these stories become very meaningful for stories and help them understand how we employ these strategies for inferring because there's an emotional piece, a social justice piece for these kids and a connection.
Related References
Activity Objective
The goal of Inferring Matters: Consolidating an Understanding of Inferences (Virtual Tour) is to provide students with opportunities to expand their understanding of inferences by connecting evidence from the text to their own knowledge and experiences.
Quick Tips
Additional Comments:
- Displaying a variety of materials and texts about making inferences helps students understand that inferring is an important strategy to using during reading.
- Use fiction, non-fiction, posters, images and other forms of media to practice inferring.
- Model how to make inferences while you read aloud.
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