Inferencing is a skill that is necessary in the academic classrooms.  It is requires a lot of language skills which we can support such as vocabulary, memory, syntax, sentence structure, and listening comprehension.  As of 4th grade, inferencing appears a part of the common core standards.  Students even younger than that work on basic inferencing skills through guessing games.  We can support it all!  Keep in mind, when it comes to our students, we need to go through the hierarchy and not just jump to the level we think they should be at.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF INFERENCING WE CAN WORK ON?

• Basic guessing games
• Inferencing with Pictures
• Inferencing with Sentences
• Inferencing from stories or longer texts

I like to include one more level which I think is super important.  Can they identify the different type of questions so they know what is expected of them.  Can they recognize literal vs. inferential questions!?

I HAVE A STUDENT ON MY CASELOAD I WANT TO WORK ON INFERENCING WITH OR I SUSPECT I SHOULD…NOW WHAT?

You need to know where to start!  You can easily probe to see how they perform at each level.  You can start where you suspect they should be and if they struggle you can break it down to an easier level.  They grasp it…make it more challenging.  Let's take a look at what you can do at each level!

BASIC INFERENCING GUESSING GAMES:

If you give clues, can your students identify the item?!  What skills are needed: listening comprehension and memory to recall the items, categorization skills, describing skills, and word retrieval skills!

LITERAL VS. INFERENTIAL QUESTIONS:

Can your students recognize the types of questions asked?!  Can they recognize when a question is a basic WH question?  It is important that they recognize inferential vocabulary such as: think, probably, might, assume.  It is also important that our students can respond to basic WH questions for this level.

INFERENCING WITH PICTURES:

Can your students use the clues of the picture to answer the inferential questions?  The reading piece is taken out so it isn't a decoding task.  Can they pull in some  background knowledge?  What skills are needed: vocabulary, sentence structure, and syntax.

INFERENCING WITH SENTENCES:

Can they read/listen to sentences, comprehend them, and recall the significant details in order to answer the inferential questions.  Can they comprehend the question being asked?  Do they have the vocabulary knowledge to be able to use it to help them?  They also need memory, auditory comprehension, syntax, and sentence structure skills in order to be able to grasp this goal.

WOULD YOU LIKE ALL OF THESE SCOOT GAME ACTIVITIES SO YOU CAN PROBE AND SEE WHERE TO BEGIN WITH YOUR STUDENTS?!

Scoot games are fun because they can be used in centers, to gather baseline, or to collect data as a review.  Students can do the tasks independently by writing down their responses on the student recoding sheet (answer keys are provided so they can even check their own work).  You can even use it as a group activity if needed.  You can give different students in the group different levels at the same time if needed.  They all just need the same student recoding page!