Inferring

After I have taught all of my making connections, visualizing, and questioning lessons using the anchor texts I described in earlier posts, I am ready for the really hard work: teaching children about inferring. Inferring is truly about thinking while reading. Taking the clues from the text and combining them with your background knowledge is a leap many children struggle with. Direct, explicit instruction is necessary. Two of my favorite inference lessons are Tight Times by Barbara Shook Hazen and Fireflies! by Julie Brinkloe. You can see from the poster how I set up the Fireflies! lesson. (excuse my foot!!)I read the story as the students follow along (I have a class set of these books). The children write their inferences (and questions, what they visualized, and their connections) on stickies which they stick right on the page in the book. As we discuss the inferences in the story, I post the stickies on the poster next to the page from the text. Once I've taught inferencing, I expect application to start to occur. By now (we are in October) the children have had explicit instruction in 4 reading strategies. They should be using the vocabulary and applying these strategies every day...to EVERYTHING they read. Christine