“Teach them how to make an inference.” - Putting Thought into Action

As I continue exploring the texts for this class, I am finding myself reconsidering so many of my own thought processes that I once assumed were automatic.  In Chapter 5 of Kylene Beers’ When Kids Can’t Read (2003), she breaks down what it actually means to make an inference and illuminates the importance of teaching these steps to our students.  Beers (2003) once told her Principal “You can’t teach someone how to make an inference. It’s inferential. It’s just something you can or can’t do” (p. 62).  To be completely honest, I had never given much thought to my own inference making ability.  Inferences always seemed to happen on their own, pictures that completed themselves in my mind while I read.  I have met people who have a hard time making inferences; adults who have trouble connecting clues and painting pictures in their mind.  Subconsciously, like Beers, I guess I always assumed inferencing was something that happened for you or didn’t.  It never occurred to me that this was something that could be practiced. 

            In Beers’ quest to help her students be able to make inferences, she started analyzing the ways in which she made inferences while reading.  The truth is, our mind is moving at such an incredible pace to pull on a variety of past and present information to create these seamless images, that it does seem daunting when first asked to examine these steps.  It is much easier to assume that it is either automatic or it isn’t.  Self-reflection and analysis, especially about invisible strategies and skills we use daily, is a difficult task.  Embracing this challenge of self-reflection, however, provides the most direct route to much of our job as educators.  Have you ever tried to teach something you did not actually understand?  How much harder was that than teaching something you know really well?  If we understand our own thinking and questioning, we can much more easily teach these strategies to students who may have trouble coming upon them naturally.  For this reason, Beers (2003) also suggests that we model this practice for our students;  “At least once a day, read aloud a short passage and think aloud your inferences. Have students decide what types of inferences you are making” (p. 69).

            Beers (2003) says,“Instead of telling students something vague like “make an inference,” we can give students specific types of inferences to make” (p. 64).  By asking our students to look for specific information, an elusive piece of text may seem much less intimidating or overwhelming.  This goes back to Tovani’s (2004) emphasis on defining purpose for our students.  Beers gives some great suggestions for the types of comments teachers can make when prompting inference making.  I like the idea of giving students various inference prompts like these, asking them to read a passage and think about their prompt for a few minutes, and then leading a group discussion like the one Beers led with an eleventh-grade English class in an example on page 66.  The group discussion allowed students to build upon each other’s thoughts and inferences to create a very rich picture of what was happening in the text.  For students who are new or struggling with inference making, I think group work like this could serve as a great scaffold to independent inference making.  It seems much of our duty as literacy teachers will involve turning invisible thought and inquiry into action our students can see, hear, and practice.

Reference List:

Beers, K. (2003). When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Tovani, C. (2004). Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.