Making inferences

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Making

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Does it make sense to you?

(warm-up task)

“He put down $10 at the window.

The woman behind the window gave

$4. The person next to him gave

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Possible inferences…

• Man & woman: <b>went on a date</b> to the movie
• Ticket: $3 each  <b>man paid for both </b>

<b>himself and the woman</b> (total = $6).

• Man got the change back ($10-$3-$3=$4)
• The woman wanted to give him $3 for the

ticket but he declined.

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What if we don’t know how

to make inferences?

• Tom: Are you free tonight?
• Mary: yes.

• Tom: I’ve two tickets for the concert.
• Mary: I see.

• Tom: So…

• Mary: What?

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Decoding inferences

• “Are you free tonight”= want to ask
her to do something.

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Making inferences

“When a reader <b>adds information that </b>
<b>he or she already knows to what is </b>
<b>stated</b>, the reader is making an

inference!” Beech (2005)

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In simple words, making

inferences is…

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How to begin with the students?

• 1) use an everyday occurrence to

demonstrate the idea of making inferences.
• 2) use a <b>short piece of text</b> and ask the

students to annotate as many inferences as
they can.

• 3) can use bumper stickers to write the

internal text that comes from the external
text

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Non-fiction text

<b> </b>

<b>Text type: </b>

<b>News report</b>

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Activity 2

Inferring the meaning of

unknown words

<b> 1st paragraph (example):</b>

A wealthy local businessman was found
dead yesterday at his home on The Pea
k. Police believe that Albert

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Activity 2

Inferring the meaning of

unknown words

<b> 1st paragraph (example):</b>

A wealthy local businessman was found
dead yesterday at his home on The Pea

k. Police believe that Albert

Sung, a jewellery shop
owner, was <b>murdered</b>.

<b>died because of money?</b>

<b>discovered later, rather strange!</b>

<b>involving police </b>

<b>perhaps he didn’t</b>
<b>die naturally</b>

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“Um…let me think…in this paragraph I can see that
the dead man was wealthy, that means he had a lot
of money…but he died suddenly, and that attracte
d the police to come…seems a bit strange, so I gue
ss he didn’t die naturally. At the end I spot the us
e of passive voice, that means he didn’t cause the
death himself, or die from an illness. Perhaps... he

was killed by someone.”

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Remember, when using the

<b>think aloud approach…</b>

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Guess result

Murdered

=

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Useful text types for

teaching inferences

• 1) <b>editorials</b> (e.g. by comparing the headli
nes of 2 newspapers reporting the same n
ews)

• 2) <b>documentary</b> (e.g. 60 mins. plus)

 looking for the director’s point of view

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Using

logic problems

can

help students develop their

ability to make inferences

<b>New Shoes…</b>

One day, two mothers and two daughters
went shopping for shoes. Their shopping

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Answer

Only three people went shopping: a

grandmother, a mother, and a daughter
— but remember that the mother was
the grandmother's daughter!

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