One of my favorite experiences is watching the moment when one of my children just gets something for the first time. It’s the moment the lightbulb turns on. The second all the pieces of the puzzle finally fall into place and something that was out of his grasp is now understood. I love how he lights up and pride beams from his face. And you know what, I think that those moments are some of their favorite moments as well. And while I love teaching all of the thoughtful reading strategies, inferring is my favorite because it means lots of light bulb moments.
So just what is inferring and how do you help your child start doing it? I’m so glad you asked.
Inferring, though it sounds complicated, is truly quite simple. When you take the clues in the text and add in a bit of your own schema to come to a conclusion about something not explicitly stated by the author or illustrator you have an inference. Now that is far too many words to explain it to the kids, so instead I show them this formula.
Text Clues + Schema = Inference
Then you want to try it out with some super simple examples:
Example 1:
The baseball came hurdling at Fred at the speed of light. He didn’t have even a second to duck or move his mitt. The next thing he knew he was laying on the ground, holding his head and crying.
Now infer! What do you think happened to Fred? How is Fred currently feeling?
Example 2:
I walked into the darkened room to a sea of tissues on the floor and Tylenol on the bedside table. Mom groaned as I turned on the light throwing the blanket back over her head. After a quick assessment of the situation, I whispered “You need some chicken noodle soup.”
“I’d rather just go back to sleep.”
“You need to keep up your strength and to stay hydrated,” I insisted. Before she could respond, I left the room and headed to the kitchen.
Now infer! What’s going on with Mom? What kind of person is the child?
Could you give an answer to each scenario? Of course you could. You could read between the lines. You are a champion at making inferences and quite honestly your child is too. Unfortunately, being able to give an answer is only half the battle. Since inferences have to do with combining text clues and schema, the because part of the statement is where the magic actually happens. It is where you defend your thinking and help others see what you are seeing. To help make our inferred thoughts clear we always use a simple sentence stem:
I think . . . . because . . . .
While I absolutely want to know what my children see between the lines – whether it is about how a character is feeling, some implied action, a personality or character trait of a character or something entirely different – what matters more to me is how they reached their conclusion. Seeing how the pieces of the puzzle fell together gives me information about the schema they are working with and the information their brain found important in the text. Often times if left to find our own inferences, the inference that I make from a book, page, or chapter is different than what the boys see on their own; yet, if asked a specific question like in the examples above, we almost always come to the same conclusions.
Inferring has many components and can creep into our thinking in many ways so over the next few weeks we will be unpacking the ways in which inferring changes how we read and understand what we are reading. Keep in the loop by joining the email list and following Smart Simple Homeschool on social media – Facebook, Instagram and Threads. These groups get special exclusive content each and every week as this is where I really unpack the nuts and bolts of how to make learning these strategies fun. I also regularly share homeschooling tips and tricks as well as funny stories from our homeschooling journey with these communities. Until next time, keep it smart. Keep it simple
Recent Comments