After you have taken time to read about the author, you are ready to start to read the writing. Your goal as you read is to make conclusions. These conclusions are not stated, but you should read between the lines to understand what the author is trying to say.
As you read, make guesses. Try to guess what will happen next in the story, what a character may say or think or even what other characters not in the scene are doing.
Next, ask questions. Why are the characters acting a certain way? What are they thinking? Where are they going? What are they feeling? What do you already know? What is missing? Why is the author not including information?
After this, you should make predictions. What do you think will happen next? How will a character react? What will the outcome be?
Finally, you should find connections in the details. After you have made predictions, see what is missing or stated in the details and make connections. Fill in the missing information using your questions, guesses and predictions.
When you finish reading the text, you should take time to fill in between the lines by looking at your response and experience. Take time to review the guesses and predictions you had made and see which ones are correct.
Let's Practice!
Hopefully at some point in your childhood, you played the game of Clue. If not, we are going to play it together now and see how making inferences work. We will be trying to solve who murdered Mr. Boddy, where and with what weapon.
The victim: Mr. Boddy.
The suspects: Mrs. Peacock, Miss Scarlet, Mrs. White, Mr. Green, Colonel Mustard and Professor Plum.
The rooms: kitchen, ballroom, library, conservatory, game room and the study.
The weapons: wrench, lead pipe, rope, revolver, knife and candlestick.
When you play the game, you first ask questions. You want to know where each of the suspects were and in what room. You also ask questions to eliminate weapons or areas where Mr. Boddy may not have been.
Next, you will begin to make predictions. If we know that Mr. Boddy was killed with a revolver but Miss Scarlet only had rope, she could be eliminated. We may also predict that the game room was still available for the murder. As you play (or read), these predictions can continue to be made and tested.
Finally, you would make a guess. Once you have successfully asked questions and made predictions, you can make a stronger guess of who killed Mr. Boddy. Perhaps all of your findings led to the theory that it was Professor Plum with the wrench in the library.
While this game may be fun, making inferences in a text works the same way. As you read, look for clues of the author's intentions. Ask questions, make predictions and come up with a conclusion. You would then want to test this conclusion through your experience and the author's background.
Lesson Summary
When making an inference, you are using background and observation to reach a logical conclusion. In literature, we use inference to find an intended meaning and what we think the author is trying to teach us. To do this, we should first learn about the author, then study the text and finally connect our response to the text. By doing so, you should be able to make predictions and reach a logical conclusion about the material.