How to teach inference

Why this matters

A young reader can retell a page and still answer "how does she feel?" with "happy, because she's happy". The answer sounds right, but nothing on the page backs it up. In a class where every student reads a different book, no one can check each answer against each page, and the teacher has to wait for quiz day to find out.

Making inferences

When readers make an inference, they reach a conclusion from evidence and reasoning about something the author implies instead of stating. Readers find clues in the text, add those clues to what they already know, and back the inference with evidence, and more than one inference can be right (Reading Rockets). An author often shows a feeling through what a character does or says instead of naming it. In The Secret Garden, Mary never says she wants the robin to come to her, but she asks the gardener "Will he always come when you call him?" almost in a whisper.

In the Flint activity, each student photographs a page from the book they're reading, and Sparky asks what the author shows on that page without saying it. A worksheet gives the whole class one passage and one answer key. In the activity, a student who names a feeling with no clue gets sent back to one sentence on their own page, and a student who finds a clue gets a harder question that needs two.

Kai's page from The Secret Garden

Kai is an elementary student who loves animals. He picked The Secret Garden for independent reading because of the robin. He reads the page fine and can tell you what happened. When he's asked how a character feels, he names a feeling without a clue from the page.

Every student in the class gets the same greeting and the same path: send a photo of one page, answer a question about what the author shows without saying it, find the words that prove it, then answer a harder question that needs two clues. Each student photographs a page from their own book, so no two chats ask the same question, and Sparky's next message depends on what that student just wrote.

Sparky uses the words on Kai's pageSparky sends Kai back to his own pageA right answer gets a harder question

K

Kai

Interest: Animals, so he picked a book with a robin in itStarting point: Names a feeling without a clue from the page

Sparky

Hi! Today you're a reading detective. Take a photo of one page from the book you're reading right now and send it to me. Pick a page where a character does or says something. Tell me the book's title too. Then we'll find out what the author is telling you without saying it.

Kai

im reading the secret garden. this is the page where mary sees the robin

Sparky

Great page choice! I read your page carefully. When Mary watches the robin hop around, the author says it gave her "a queer feeling in her heart." How do you think Mary feels about the robin?

Kai

she feels happy because she is happy about the robin

Sparky

Good thinking, she does seem happy! But can you find the exact words on your page that show that feeling?

Kai

it says the bird put his tiny head on one side

Sparky

That's a great detail, you found a real clue! But that one tells us about the bird's action, not Mary's feeling. Look at the sentence that has "queer feeling in her heart." What words right after that tell you why she felt that way?

Kai

because he was so pretty and cheerful and seemed so like a person. so she likes him. maybe she wants him to be her friend

Understanding check

Yes! "Pretty and cheerful and seemed so like a person": those are your clue words. Now here's a harder question, and it needs two clues to answer. The gardener talks to the robin like it's a child, and Mary whispers her question to him. What do you think Mary wants from the gardener and the robin, even though she never says it? Find two clues from different parts of the page.

Kai

she wants the robin to come to her too. she asks will he always come when you call him

Sparky

That's a strong clue! "Will he always come when you call him?" really does show she wants the robin to come to her. Can you find a second clue from a different part of the page that shows what Mary wants?

Kai

she asked almost in a whisper. you whisper when you dont want to scare something away. so she really wants him to stay

Sparky

"Almost in a whisper" is a perfect second clue, and you explained why it works. Now write one or two sentences with your inference and the words from the page that prove it, in quotation marks.

Kai

mary wants the robin to be her friend because she asks "will he always come when you call him" and she asks it "almost in a whisper" so she wont scare him

Sparky

That is a really strong inference sentence! You used two quotes from the page, connected them to your inference, and explained the "whisper" clue.

Guessed with no clue, found the clue in one sentence, then proved what Mary wants with two quotes

Kai is an example student, and Sparky's replies are shortened. The photo is page 48 of the 1911 edition of The Secret Garden.

What Flint did for Kai

• Flint read the whole page in Kai's photo, and Sparky's first question quoted a sentence from it.
• When Kai said Mary was happy because she was happy, Sparky asked for the words on the page that showed it and didn't give the answer.
• When his clue described the bird instead of Mary, Sparky pointed him to one sentence on his own page.
• Once Kai found the clue, Sparky asked a harder question about something the author never says, and asked for a second clue when he gave only one.
• Sparky asked Kai to prove his answer in a sentence with quotation marks from the page.

A teacher can't write questions for 30 different books by hand, and Sparky does it in every student's chat.

The activity page shows who is still guessing without clues

While the class works, Needs attention shows the teacher which student is stuck and on which message. After three or more students submit, activity analytics lists what the class did well, where students went wrong, and a follow-up to practice next.

Set up the activity for free

The reading activity is in Flint's public library, with Sparky's guidelines and the greeting already written. Open it, select Use activity to copy it into a free Flint account, and assign it to a class. Students photograph a page from any book they're reading, so the activity works with your class library as it is.

For more reading and writing activities, see Flint for English language arts.