By: Jaime Johnson
REED 663
Dr. Pitcher
Introduction
•Inferencing is an essential comprehension
strategy.
•Students who make inferences while reading
are more engaged, able to make personal
connections to the text, and are able to
comprehend a story better.
•Teachers need to point out to their students
that inferences are made at all times in their
daily lives.
•When taught how to correctly make
inferences, students will become successful
strategic and critical readers.
Purpose
•The purpose of the lessons was to apply the
strategy of making inferences.
•There were four lessons that worked on
increasing my students inferential thinking.
•The lessons were taught to a small group of
eight students of different abilities.
•Each lesson built upon each other and
followed the gradual release of responsibility.
•Each lesson used a variety of different books
and levels of books. Each lesson was 25 – 30
minutes long.
Lesson One – Dirty Shoe &
Mystery House
This lesson introduced students to the inferencing strategy.
They had to use a picture of a dirty shoe and a bag of trash to
infer who owned the items.
Before
I started the lesson by asking the students what they knew
about making inferences. I will explain to the group that they
will look at a picture of a shoe and make inference about who
owns the shoe by the way it looks.
During
I will show the picture of the shoe and show the students how
to make inferences by giving a few inferences, the evidence to
support those inferences and the prior knowledge that I used to
come up with the inferences. I will then have the students form
their own inferences with a partner after modeling the process a
few times and doing a few together. As they make inferences, I
will record their answers on a chart and ask them questions.
Lesson One Continued
After
I will ask the students how they were able to decide that the
picture of the shoe belongs to a boy without anything to tell
them that. Then I will hand out the mystery house inference
chart and explain that they will now work on making inferences
about who my mystery neighbor is by looking at a few pieces of
trash. I will show them a piece of trash and they will work on
their own to come up with an inference about what it tells them
about the person who lives at the house.
Lesson One Pictures
Lesson One Results
•The lesson was taught to a small group of eight
students and was explicitly taught and had a lot of
guided practice.
•They were able to make inferences about the picture
and the bag of trash with out any problem.
•They did have some trouble with supporting their
inferences with the evidence that they found and also
use their prior knowledge to help support their
inference.
•They really liked trying to figure out who my
mystery neighbor was and they couldn’t wait to find
out if they correct or not.
•After modeling with the students, they were able to
successfully complete the mystery house inference
chart on their own.
Lesson Two- “Ring! Yo?”
In this lesson, I introduced the students to text by using the
story/picture book “Ring! Yo?” by Chris Raschka. This story
provided the students with a one sided phone conversation. The
students had to infer what the other child was saying based off
their background knowledge and the text and illustrations.
Before
I will ask the students what they learned yesterday from our
lesson. I then introduced them to the book “Ring! Yo?” and
asked them what they think the book might be about by the
title and front cover. To build their background knowledge I told
the students to think about a time when they heard their
parents on the phone. I told them that they were probably able
to infer what they were talking about based off what they
heard and the facial expressions of their parents.
Lesson Two Continued
During
While reading, I modeled to the students what I inferred the
conversation was about by using my background knowledge,
looking at the illustrations (especially the characters facial
expressions), and the text. I passed out and modeled how to fill
out the T-chart. After the first read of the story, we went
back and I modeled the first two rows of the conversation. We
then worked together to do the next two. They then worked
with their partner to fill in the next three rows. As they went
along, I asked them questions about their thinking.
After
I then had the students then work on their own and finish filling
out the T-chart with inferences about the conversation. After
they finished the T-chart, I had the students write a quick
response as to what they thought the whole conversation was
about.
Lesson Two Pictures
Lesson Two Results
•The lesson was also taught to a small group of eight
students and was explicitly taught and had a lot of
guided practice.
•The students really enjoyed the book and had fun
trying to figure out what the conversation was all
about, but did struggle with inferring what the other
boy was saying.
•While I was reading the story and modeling how to
make inferences, the students were saying “I think
the one boy is asking the other boy to come over and
play”
• The students were able to write a quick response to
what they thought the conversation was about, but
some of them had trouble matching the T-chart to
the response.
Lesson Three – Poetry
This was the third lesson in the series that I taught to a small
group of eight students. The students were introduced to poems
in an engaging way. They applied the strategy of making
inferences to the different poems that they read.
Before
I told the students that they would be reading poetry today and
we would understand what the poems mean by making inferences.
I first had to build their background knowledge about the
different poems before we read each one.
During
The first poem we worked with was Pancake by Shel Silverstein.
I read the poem and modeled how to properly make inferences
from a poem. Next we worked together to make inferences from
the poem The Land of Happy by Shel Silverstein. We answered
inferential questions about the poem. Then they worked with
their partner to read the poem Band-Aids by Shel Silverstein.
After they read the poem, they answered inferential questions.
Lesson Three Continued
After
I introduced the poem Snowman by Shel Silverstein and told the
students that they going to draw a picture of what the poem
means. The students read the poem Snowman independently and
drew a picture of what the poem means and then wrote in words
what it means. After everyone finished we looked at every ones
picture and found out what they thought it meant.
Lesson Three Pictures
Lesson Three Results
•The students were very engaged throughout the whole lesson.
They were able to answer the inferential questions and were
able to draw what they thought the poem Snowman was about.
•I followed the gradual release of responsibility, which really
seemed to help the students understand the poems better.
•The students worked well with their partners and were able to
refer back to the poem to find evidence to help support their
inferences.
•One student was able to make a connection to the poem
Pancake, when Terrible Theresa says I want the pancake in the
middle. He said “I do that to my mom sometimes and she gets
mad at me.” We talked about what that meant and why was she
“labeled” as terrible for wanting one from the middle of the tall
stack, and why Grace was good for wanting the one on top.
Lesson Four – The Stranger
This is the last lesson that I completed but it was done with a
whole group and it was using the story “The Stranger” from
their Houghton Mifflin Reading book. The students made
inferences about the main characters actions in order to figure
out who the stranger was.
Before
We built background knowledge by talking about the different
seasons and the characteristics that go along with each season.
We also built background knowledge about living on a farm in
order to help understand the story. After passing out the
inference chart, I again asked what it means to make inferences
and why it is important.
During
As we read the story, The Stranger, I first modeled the
evidence from the story I was looking for by doing the first 2
rows. Then the students continued to read and we followed the
gradual release of responsibility and we worked together to
complete the next 3 rows together. Then they did the next 4
rows with a partner.
Lesson Four Continued
After
The students then completed the rest of the chart on their
own. Then they were asked to answer the inferential question,
“Who is the stranger?” We then shared their answers from the
rest of the inference chart and their answer to the question of
who they think the stranger is.
Lesson Four Pictures
Lesson Four Results
•This final lesson was taught to a whole group of students
using the gradual release of responsibility.
•The students did really well with asking questions and
then making an inference based off of their questions.
•The students really enjoyed reading this story and it
sparked a lot of discussion as to who the stranger is. One
student said “ I think the stranger is Father Nature
because every time something happens on the farm it is
always dealing with the weather and I know that he
controls the weather.”
•I was glad to see that they were connecting their
background knowledge to figure out who the stranger is
because they were having trouble with this in earlier
lessons.
•Almost all of the students were correctly able to answer
the inferential question of “Who is the stranger?” I was
very pleased with the results of the lesson.
Relevance
•I had another fourth grade teacher teach a making
inferences lesson using poetry.
•The other class has students who are on grade level
and some who are below grade level. There are some
students who have 504 plans in the class. She taught
the lesson to her whole class.
•The teacher said “I really like how this lesson used a
variety of poems and how it allowed the students to
piggyback on ideas which helped elaborate their
understanding of the poems.”
•She also said that “the students loved how it let
them be creative and draw a picture of what the
poem meant to them.”
• She said that this was a great lesson to help the
students to make inferences and that she will
probably plan on using this again next year.
Conclusion
•After teaching these four lessons, I realized that students
have a hard time understanding how to properly make inferences
and especially relating it to their personal experience.
Sometimes you need to go beyond the curriculum to help them
grasp a particular concept.
•I plan on using these lesson in the years to come! The students
seemed to really enjoy the stories and I think I might use them
as whole group lessons instead of small group to better help all
the students understand how to make inferences.
•Making inferences is a difficult skill but when they understand
what it means and how it is done, they will enjoy it!
•My classmates can use these lessons to help their students to
make inferences. There are a variety of different levels of
texts that will work with all ages. Many of the activities can be
adapted to meet the needs of their students. The students I
worked with were 4th graders, so I needed to make it a little
more challenging for them but they can be easily changed to fit
any grade level.