Part 1: How Do We Teach Inferring?

Teachers are looking for ways to teach reading comprehension strategies more effectively.

If we notice that our students are falling down in reading comprehension, particularly on formal assessments, how do we help them be more successful? What do we teach to help students be good at inferencing?

Firstly, we need to understand what inferring is.

Inferring is a strategy. It permits readers to merge their background knowledge with text clues to come to a conclusion about new ideas that aren’t directly stated in the text. Drawing conclusions helps readers gather more information and ideas and understand the writer’s point of view.

Readers gather and question details from the text and reach a decision that makes sense. They arrive at a decision or opinion by reasoning from known facts or evidence that seems to require that a specific conclusion be reached.

Strategic readers create unique understandings of the text, make predictions and inferences, and confirm or deny those predictions based on textual information.

These readers test their developing comprehension of the text along with extending their comprehension beyond literal understandings of the printed page.

‘Inferencing is the bedrock of comprehension ... it is about reading faces, reading body language, reading expressions, and reading tone, as well as reading text.’ - Harvey and Goudvis, Strategies That Work

In part 1 of our discussion on inferring, we talk about:

• The fundamentals of inferring
• Applying this in Mini Lessons
• Strategic thinking models and strategies

And much more!

And stay tuned for part 2 next episode ...

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Other matching PDF resources can be found at Teachific.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

TEACHIFIC

• Inferring and Drawing Conclusions: Mini Lessons, K-8
• Comprehension Mini Lessons - Inferring, K-2

BOOKTOPIA

• Strategies that Work by Harvey and Goudvis

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