Teaching Your Students How to Make Inferences?

Teaching students to make inferences involves guiding them through a series of steps to help them understand how to read between the lines. Let’s take a look at how to teach your young readers how to make an inference.

Start by explaining what inference means in simple terms, using relatable examples or stories that involve making educated guesses based on clues. For example, you may give the example of someone going outside with an umbrella. Students will probably be able to infer that the character is doing this because it is going to rain, even though that information wasn’t provided.

Encourage your students to discover hidden meanings in texts by highlighting specific words, phrases, or details. It’s also important to teach them how to use their own experiences and prior knowledge to fill in the gaps and understand implicit meanings. This approach will not only improve their reading comprehension but also enhance their critical thinking skills and ability to make connections.

Making Inferences Graphic Organizer Pack For Your Classroom 

Teach Starter has put together a collection of 6 different graphic organizers to use with your students while they are learning to infer from a given text. These organizers have options for students to draw, write or both. When discussing how to make an inference, use the spaces provided to show how students must first find clues from the text, think about what they already know and how to determine an inference. There are also organizers provided for students who are ready to move straight from finding text evidence and determining an inference.

How to Get These Reading Comprehension Graphic Organizers

If you are ready for your students to use these organizers while reading, head on over to the green download button! Here, you will find the quick-print PDF file and the editable Google Slides option. If selecting the Google Slides file, please note that you will first be prompted to make a copy of the resource to your personal drive before accessing it.

Additional Inference Materials For You!

Make sure to check out some of our additional resources to support your reading lessons!

teaching resource

Inference Detectives Worksheet Pack

Guide your students to use personal experiences and text evidence to make inferences with this set of reading worksheets.

teaching resource

Inferences and Drawing Conclusions Anchor Chart

Use this poster to remind your students how to draw conclusions and make inferences from a piece of text.