Making inferences is one of those reading skills students use every single day without realizing it. They can tell you their friend is upset from the look on her face, or that it rained overnight because the playground is full of puddles. Ask them to do the same thing with a story, though, and suddenly it feels like a mystery.
Inferencing gets so much easier for students once they have a simple way to explain it. In this post, I’m sharing how I teach making inferences in grades 3-5, the little formula my students learned, and how to get them to defend their thinking instead of just guessing.
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What Is an Inference? Start with a Simple Formula
A lot of what we understand from a text is never actually written by the author. Authors leave clues and trust the reader to put the rest together. That’s what an inference is: a conclusion the reader figures out using clues from the text and what they already know.
To make that easy to remember, I teach it as a math sentence.
Background Knowledge + Text Evidence = Inference
In my classroom, it was BK + TE = I, and it goes right at the top of the anchor chart. I love it because it reminds students that an inference needs both parts. If they only use what they already know, they’re making something up. If they only use the text, they’re just repeating what the author said. The inference happens when the two come together.
Here’s the example I use to introduce it. Judith rushes into the classroom, tosses her backpack onto a hook and hurries to her seat just after the morning bell rings. Her teacher shakes her head and doesn’t seem surprised.
The author never tells us Judith is late a lot. We can still figure it out.
- Background knowledge: When someone rushes in and hurries to their seat, they are usually late. When a person isn’t surprised by something, it’s usually because it happens often.
- Text evidence: Judith rushed in and hurried to her seat. Her teacher didn’t seem surprised.
- Inference: Judith is late to class a lot.
Start with Everyday Inferences Before Any Text
Before I ever hand out a passage, I want students to see that they already make inferences all day long. So we start with pictures and quick, made-up situations that have nothing to do with reading.
Show a photo of a kitchen with flour all over the counter and an open recipe book, and ask what happened. Or try a quick one out loud: “Your friend walks in with wet hair and a dripping umbrella. What’s the weather like?” Students answer these in a second, and they’re usually right.
Then I slow them down and ask, “How do you know?” That one little question does most of the teaching. Students start to notice that they used something they saw (the clue) and something they already knew (their background knowledge). Once they can say that out loud with a picture, it’s a small step to do the same thing with words.
An Inference Is Not a Guess: Teach Students to Defend It
This is the part I would spend the most time on. When students first learn to infer, many of them hear “make an inference” as “take a guess.” They’ll throw out an answer that sounds fine, but when you ask why, there’s nothing in the text to back it up.
That’s why the unit I created is called Making and Defending Inferences. Every inference has to come with proof. I tell my students that a guess can come from anywhere, but an inference has to be something you can point to in the text.
A few things that help:
- Ask “What in the text makes you think that?” every time a student shares an inference. After a while, they start answering it before you ask.
- Accept more than one answer. Two students can make different inferences from the same passage, and both can be right if both are backed by the text. This takes a lot of pressure off students who are afraid of being wrong.
- Let inferences change. Sometimes a student makes a great inference on page 2, and then something on page 5 proves it wrong. Changing your mind because of new evidence is exactly what good readers do, so celebrate it when it happens!
An Inference Anchor Chart and Sentence Stems
An inference anchor chart doesn’t need to be fancy. Write “What’s an Inference?” at the top with a short definition, and put the BK + TE = I formula underneath it. Below that, add a three-column chart with the headings Background Knowledge, Text Evidence and My Inference, and fill it in together as you read. (My charts were never fancy. You can see more of them in my post on my not-so-Pinteresty anchor charts.)
I also posted a few sentence stems right next to it. They give students the words to explain their thinking, and they make written answers much stronger.
- “I think ___ because the text says ___.”
- “I already know that ___, so ___.”
- “The clues ___ and ___ make me think ___.”
- “At first I thought ___, but now I think ___ because ___.”
That last stem is my favorite, because it gives students a way to change their inference without feeling like they got it wrong.
Practice Making Inferences with Short Passages
Once students understand the formula, they need practice, and short passages work best. A long chapter has too many clues to keep track of. A single paragraph lets students focus on just a few.
This is where my Making & Defending Inferences Unit comes in. It starts with a page of student notes that explains the BK + TE = I idea, which students can glue right into their reading notebooks. Then there are fiction and nonfiction practice passages where students answer a question, make an inference and record the background knowledge and text clues that helped them.
One of the passages is about a girl named Martha who waits for her dad to come home every day. The text never tells you what his job is, but it mentions his white coat and the stethoscope around his neck. It’s a great first passage because the clues are easy to spot, and students can explain exactly how they knew he’s a doctor.
My favorite way to use these passages is with partners. One student makes an inference, and the other has to find the text evidence that proves it. Then they switch. It turns the “defend it” part into a bit of a game, and students listen to each other much more closely.
The unit also has an inference game with 24 cards, a poster, a 17-slide lesson in PowerPoint for teaching it whole class, and a test with an answer key. The notes, passages and test all come in digital versions too, so you can use them in Google Classroom.
Keep Inferencing Going in Independent Reading
Students won’t master inferencing in one unit. They need to keep using it with their own books all year, or it fades fast.
- Add an inference code to your sticky notes. If your students already code their thinking on sticky notes, give them a symbol for “I inferred something here.” I explain how I set up sticky note codes in my post on independent reading activities that actually work.
- Use a graphic organizer with any book. The Making Inferences unit includes an “Organizing My Inferences” page with the same three columns as the anchor chart. Students can use it with whatever book they’re reading.
- Ask for inferences during conferences. “What’s something the author didn’t tell you, but you figured out?” is a great question to ask during a reading conference, and it only takes a minute.
- Mix it into review. Inference questions show up in all kinds of reading, so they’re perfect for reading centers and daily review. I share a few more simple ideas in my post on how to increase reading comprehension.
If you’re working on main idea and supporting details too, you’ll notice the two skills support each other. When the main idea isn’t stated, students have to infer it from the details.
Free Reading Resources to Get You Started
Try it for FREE! Just click the button below and I’ll give you access to my freebies, including reading resources you can use in your classroom right away.
I also keep a list of my FREE reading resources for teachers, with passages and questions you can use for inference practice.
I hope these ideas make teaching making inferences a little easier in your classroom! If you only try one thing, try writing BK + TE = I on the board and asking “How do you know?” every chance you get. Your students will be defending their inferences before you know it ๐
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