3.3 Sentence Level Inferencing

To easily introduce the concept of inferencing in a text with no pictures, use short, one-sentence exercises like the examples below. You will illustrate the thought process students need to go through to identify facts within a sentence. Then you’ll show how connections are made across the sentence and with background knowledge to uncover new ideas that are not directly stated in the text.

Step 1: Introduce the Lesson and Review Inferencing

Explain to students that in this exercise you will only use text. Refresh their memory on what inferencing is:

Inferencing means making thoughtful guesses about something you’re reading using …

• What we read
• What we see
• What we already know

Inferencing allows us to make meaning of things even when we don’t have all of the information.

Step 2: Making Connections within the Text

• Share the sentence with the students on your white board:

The ball cleared the rim to score one point and tie the game.

• After reading the sentence together, ask children what words they hear in the text that gives them clues about what is happening. What do they already know about those words that helps them understand the text?
• You might mark the sentence up like this as you go:

With the inferencing graphic organizer, write an “X” or “no information” under the column “From the Visuals,” since you’ll only be using text in this activity. And it’s time to pull out that graphic organizer and record what your students can learn directly from the text:

If your students struggle to identify what they can learn directly from the text, questions that ask who, what, when, where, how, or why can bring the meaning into focus. 

Step 3: Making Connections from the Text to Background Knowledge

The next step is for you to guide your students in thinking of what knowledge they have that they could use to figure out the meaning of the sentence. You might need to help them activate their background knowledge with questions: 

• What kind of rim do you think the writer means? The rim of a cliff? The rim of a drum? 
• What kind of game would involve a ball and a rim?
• What sport has scoring that involves one point? 

Step 4: Guiding Students to Make Inferences

Finally, through discussion, help your students make an inference by pulling together the information they gathered directly from the sentence with the background knowledge the class has.

Ask them, what is happening in this sentence? You might say … 

We know there’s a game happening. We read that in the sentence, and Sung Hee tells us basketball is a game that has a ball and a rim. You’re on the school basketball team, right Sung Hee? We know from the text that one point was just scored, and that tied the game. And Marco, you’re a big Wizards fan. You told us that you score one point in basketball with a free throw. So what do you think is happening? What can we infer?

Here’s hoping your kids tell you that a very exciting game was just tied with a free throw! Or you can help them get to that inference!

Here are a couple of other sentences to try inferencing with:

You can use the graphic organizer to help your students make a thoughtful inference about what’s going on in each of these situations.