Make Inferences

A second strategy we will be practicing this week is Make Inferences. An inference is when you use clues from the story to figure out something the author does not tell you.

These are some good books for practicing making inferences:

How to Make an Inference


To make an inference, you need to use clues from the story and your own experiences to figure out something that the author does not tell you. We can use an "It Says, I Say, So" chart to help us make inferences:

It Says...	I Say...	So...

In the first column, "It Says...", you tell clues from the story. In the second column, "I Say...", you tell what you know about the clues from the story, using your own experiences to help you. In the third column, "So...", you make an inference using the clues from the story and your knowledge from your own experiences.

There is also a second way to make an inference, using a graphic organizer:

Questions	Evidence From Story	Prior Knowledge	Inference

In the first column, you write the question that you would like to answer. In the second column, you write the evidence from the story that will help you answer the question. In the third column, you write your own knowledge that might help you answer the question. In the last column, you put the evidence from the story and your own knowledge together to make an inference about the answer to the question.

Follow this link to watch a short video about Making Inferences: Making Inferences Video