Making Inferences

• Inference


  Uses facts to determine other facts
• Inference


  Examining the facts of a given situation and determining what those facts suggest about the situation
• Inference


  Can be accurate or inaccurate, justified or unjustified, logical or illogical
• Inference


  Going beyond what is stated explicitly in the text to infer the intended message by paying attention to certain "clues"
• Inference


  Also called "reading between the lines"
• Why we infer


  • To determine why things happen
  • Why characters behave the way they do
  • How characters are feeling
• Purpose for inferring/predicting


  • Predictions give you motivation and purpose for reading
  • To activate prior background knowledge with the text to develop a deeper meaning and understanding about the text
• When to infer


  • Before reading (cover, pictures, pre-reading questions, prior knowledge)
  • During reading (text, illustrations, text clues, experiences/prior knowledge, comparisons, cause and effects)
  • After reading (prior knowledge, experiences, text clues, comparisons, causes and effects, connections to the text)
• Thoughtful, active, proficient readers are metacognitive; they think about their own thinking during reading
• Proficient readers use their prior knowledge and textual information to draw conclusions, make critical judgments, and form unique interpretations from text
• Types of inferences


  • Deduction
  • Induction
  • Abduction
• Deduction


  Deriving a conclusion from the given axioms and facts
• Induction


  Deriving a general rule from particular or specific observations
• Abduction


  Making and testing hypotheses using the best available information to explain an incomplete set of observations
• Conclusion


  A statement that is logically derived from the information given and does not require inference
• Conclusions require two conditions: 1) logically derived from the information given, 2) not inferred from the given statement
• Conclusion example


  • Anna's watch is broken, it can't be repaired now and she knows a shop that has the same watch. Conclusion: Anna would buy that watch.
• Strategies in making inferences and drawing conclusions


  • Observe the details provided by the author
  • Draw from your experiences and connect them to the reading
  • Ask yourself what may happen as a result of what is taking place in the reading
• Details from the reading + Your experiences = A conclusion about what is happening or will happen
• Conclusion is more about logically deriving the next step
• Learning how to make inferences and draw conclusions can help you become a good observer of the world around you and become a better communicator
• Inference example


  • If you see an elderly person staring at an item high on a shelf, you may infer that this person wants that item and offer to get it for them