Inferencing Hunting for Clues to Solve a Puzzle

What is Inferencing? When you make an inference, you add what you already know to what an author has told you. When you make an inference, you add what you already know to what an author has told.

Here are some Synonyms deduce figure out guess interpretation read between the lines understand reason drawing conclusions

Daily Inferencing Jigsaw puzzles Answering Riddles Problem Solving (backtracking) Answering questions Reading Math word problems Talking with people

Finding Clues What Should We Look For? PLACES TIME COLORS TEXTURES BODY LANGUAGE ACTIONS SITUATIONS OR CONTEXT

Visual Clues What clues do you see? What do we know about the product? What do we know about the company? What do we know about the person who drank the drink?

Situational Clues What do we know about this picture? What clues do you see? What can we infer from the clues?

Location Clues What do we know about the event in the photo? What is the mood of the event? What other activities may be occurring at the same time or later?

Word Clues It’s clear It’s round It’s made of glass, metal and plastic It has a handle It makes things look bigger What is it?

Body Language Clues Are they having the same conversation? How do you know?

Let’s Practice What clues do you notice? Who are the people in the commercial and what do they represent? What emotions are you seeing from the people in the commercial? What can we infer from this commercial?

Putting the Clues Together When we infer meaning we put together clues like a jigsaw puzzle. For example: Look at our clues! The Captain traveled down the rough muddy road in his Jeep. What clues are presented? What can we infer about The Captain?

You be the Detective Now, let’s practice inferencing. Follow along as we go through some examples.

What the author says + what I know = my inference! “The weather had been scorching for weeks.” I know that Summer is the hottest time of the year. This passage or story takes place in the Summer.

“The boy reached up and got a glass from the cabinet.” I know that the boy must be thirsty and is going to get a drink. I know that when I’m thirsty, I want a drink. I need a glass to get a drink.

“I don’t get it”... Sometimes people say this when there’s a piece of information they don’t know that’s keeping them from making an inference. In this comic you have to know what a “symptom” is. A symptom is a sign or indicator of something. Calvin is trying to show his mom signs of being sick but tells her so many silly ones that she knows he’s faking it.

Think about the hidden information in this comic that you have to figure out in order to “get it”.... The teacher sends Calvin to the principal when he takes the gum out of his mouth and offers to share it instead of understanding that his teacher is sarcastically reminding Calvin that he shouldn’t be chewing gum. He tries to blame the teacher for the trouble he’s in with the principal.

To finish up…remember! When you think about that hidden information on your own and understand that in the comic the author has written, you’re making an inference! It’s like an “author and me” question, where you use your own thinking and background knowledge combined with the information the author has written.