[Margaret916]

I think inferencing is a tougher skill to teach -- so we do lots of activities. One is that we do this great lesson with my smartboard (a modified pre-made lesson from the website) and follow it up with a reading of Squids will be Squids by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith. It's so awesome becasue to get the "jokes" they need to infer what the author is talking about. It's terribly funny and pretty sarcastic. This is a lesson for big kids -- mature 4th graders or 5th graders. They love it!

[Dina]

I'd like to hear more about that lesson, please.

[Margaret916]

http://education.smarttech.com/ste/e...+Inference.htm l

That is the link for the pre-made lesson from smarttech.com. We did that lesson, talked several times about inferences in relation to our read-alouds and our book groups. Finally we read the Squids will be Squids book and to understand those jokes, the kids really saw what inferencing meant!


I'm not sure if this helps or not. If you're not able to read the lesson from smart tech I can explain that more -- it has on the first screen "clear everthing off of your desk except a pencil and one sheet of paper.' the kids immediately groan because it sounsd like a quiz or test -- then you talk about what they inferred. It goes on to do a few more examples and says that knowledge (schema) + text clues = inferencing. We talk aobut how we have to have schema to understand it. As we go through each example we label our schema and our clues that help us to infer!

[Dina]

I have a Smartboard too, so I'll be sure to check this lesson out. Thanks for sharing!

[BookMuncher]

We break inferences into parts and make a big chart:

When do readers need to infer?

When you don't know a word (The Old Man and the Door)

When the author doesn't tell you the character's traits (Chester's Way)

When something is left out of the story

When you don't understand (Grandfather Twighlight)

When the author's message is not spelled out (The Other Side)

As we do each one, we do a mini-lesson with a picture book (I can't remember all of them, but I copy the covers and tape them beside that line on our inference chart. We use it for the rest of the year when talking about inferences.

[J.Elaine]

I use The Good Dog Carl (a wordless book) by Alexandra Day to have students infer what's going on just by using the illustrations.

I also usd No, David! by David Shannon for drawing inferences. David's mother's words, "No, David!" appear over and over again and students have to infer what David is doing wrong this time!!!

One last one I'll mention is Yo! Yes? by Chris Raschka. Raschka tells a great story with only a few well-punctuated word. Students use the illustrations and must pay close attention to the punctuation marks to infer meaning.

[swalters]

I have one but don't use it. This year I want to use it more. For inference a great websitte is readinglady.com/mosaic they have lost of books for all the comprehension strategies.

[kristen_teach]

I don't have a Smart Board. Is there a way you can convert this to a PowerPoint file? Or give more information about what is included in the lesson?

[Nat]

that lesson looks great but I don't have a smartboard either! oh man!
nat

[TexTerri]

We have 1 smartboard per grade level at this time. I've never put my name in the hat to use it before but you guys have made me want to use it. Thanks.

[J.Elaine]

I have a SmartBoard. Thanks for posting the web address.