Distance Learning Series: Making Inferences
Happy Wednesday! Holly Rosensweig of Spiffy Speech and I are so excited to bring the fourth installment of our Distance Learning Lessons Series to those of you who haven’t yet been set free for the summer! In case you missed them, check out our previous posts covering reading comprehension, articulation, and syntax lesson plans for teletherapy. Also be sure to visit and bookmark this Teletherapy Resources: The ULTIMATE Master List for SLPs-- and scroll to the bottom for tons of links to teletherapy games and websites!
This post includes example lesson plans that can be used for distance learning or teletherapy sessions with all school-age students. For those of you who are not doing live sessions but are still assigning work via Google Classroom or other similar platforms, several resources and activities are included at the end of this post! Also please note, this post may include Amazon affiliate links. We hope these lessons are helpful as you continue to plan your sessions amongst the chaos!
Elementary School
One of the easiest ways to work on basic inferencing skills with younger elementary students is by using picture books, and the same is true during teletherapy sessions! While reading a story (either using the lower-tech option of holding up a book you have at home or screen sharing from your computer or iPad), you can require the student to answer inferencing questions about 1) what they see in the pictures or 2) what they heard you read aloud. Examples of inferencing questions to practice include questions about:
Seasons: What season do you think it is? How can you tell (i.e., from what you see or what you heard)?
Holidays: What holiday do you think it is? How can you tell?
Weather: What is the weather like? How can you tell?
Time of Day: What time of day is it? How can you tell?
Feelings/Emotions: How might this character be feeling? How can you tell or why do you think that?
People/Occupations: Who might this person be or what job might they have? How can you tell?
Places: What place do you think this is? How can you tell?
Predictions or past events: What do you think might happen next? Why do you think that? (as making predictions often involves inferencing) What do you think happened BEFORE this? Why do you think that?
Character traits or likes/dislikes: What words describe this character? Are they hardworking or lazy? How can you tell? What does this character like or not like? How can you tell?
Adjectives or basic concepts (e.g., locations): Is the character hungry or full? How can you tell? Is the character inside or outside? How can you tell?
Activity One: Teaching the Skill to Younger Students
When working on answering inferencing questions, students may benefit from being taught that an inference = what you see/hear/read + what you already know. To improve formulation of their responses, they can be given a sentence frame such as: “I think _________ because I see __________ and I know that __________.” Click here to download a free sentence frame resource to use with elementary students. If using Zoom, you can use Annotate to type directly into the sentence frame (or have the student type as they respond!) If your teletherapy platform does not provide an annotate feature, you can also open the file in a PDF viewer that allows for annotation such as PDFelement on an iPad (it’s free to download).
Click here to download a free inferencing resource sample that contains 14 photo cards for answering inferencing questions about seasons, holidays, weather, emotions, people, places, and opposites. If you’d like more photo inferencing cards for younger students, the full version of this resource (with 150 photo cards) can be found here.
Activity Two: Read Aloud
The picture books written by Davide Cali are particularly great for working on inferencing. Since we are gearing up for summer break, check out his book, The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer. Though sadly not on Epic or Vooks, you can use a FREE read-aloud of the book on YouTube such as this one while screen sharing! Make sure to mute the video and pause on each page so that you can read the book aloud to the student and ask questions. If you’d prefer to screen share a digital copy of the book, you can buy the Kindle version on Amazon for about $9 and view using a free app.
Page 1: Who do you think is talking to the boy? How can you tell? Most students will guess that it is the boy’s mom, which provides an opportunity to ask, “Why wouldn’t it be his mom?” “How do we know that it’s probably his teacher?”
Page 2: Where is the boy? How can you tell? What is the weather like? How can you tell?
Page 4: Who do you think will be on the ship? How can you tell?
Page 5: How can you tell that the crew are pirates? How do you think the pirates feel? How can you tell?
Page 6: How do you think the boy feels? Why?
Page 7: What do you think the captain likes to do? How can you tell?
Pages 8-9: Why did the boy think they had traveled back in time? How can you tell that this is actually a movie set? How do you think the boy feels? How can you tell?
Page 10: Are the characters up high or down low? How can you tell? How might the dog be feeling?
Page 11: Where are the characters now? How can you tell?
Page 12: Where is the boy? How can you tell?
Page 13: What do you think is going to happen? How do you know?
Page 14-15: Who are these monsters? How can you tell?
Page 17: Where are the characters now? How can you tell? What is the uncle trying to do? How can you tell?
Pages 18-19: What do you think the boy is going to eat? How can you tell? How did the boy get the fish? How do you know? Is the fish hot or cold? How do you know? What do you think happened before he was cooking? How do you know?
Page 20: Where is the boy? Why do you think that?
Page 21: Where is the boy? Why do you think that? Is the boy moving fast or slow? How do you know?
Page 22: What is the weather/temperature like? How do you know?
Page 24: Where is the boy? How do you know? Do you think he is back where he started or at a different beach? How can you tell?
Pages 25-26: How do you think the boy feels? How do you know? What might the boy and dog do next? How do you know?
Page 27: Where is the boy? How do you know?
Page 28: Do you think the teacher believes him? Why not?
Page 29: Study these two pages very closely. What inferences can you make about what happened three months earlier?
The other books by Davide Cali are similarly great for inferencing and free read-alouds can also be found on YouTube and Amazon. Preview the titles here!
Activity Three: Detective games!
Detective games that require the student to search for clues are an especially fun way to work on inferencing! If you don’t have a Boom cards account through Boom Learning yet, you can sign up for a FREE ultimate membership through June! The Boom card game, Sherlock Homes, by FunNGames, is fantastic for working on inferences. Students look through 22 different apartment homes in order to make inferences about their tenants such as about their jobs, personality traits, likes/dislikes, pets, what might have happened in the past (e.g., they just moved in), or what is going to happen in the future (e.g., they are going to have a birthday party). Tons of inferencing questions are provided as well as bonus question pages such as fill-in-the-blanks for typing in adjectives that describe each tenant. This game can also be used to work on language skills such as comparing/contrasting, describing, vocab / word retrieval, and articulation-- it includes word lists for different sounds in order to go on articulation scavenger hunts within the different apartments.
Activity Four: Making Inferences about Places
Use virtual backgrounds to your advantage, especially if working with younger elementary students-- virtual backgrounds are not only super engaging but also provide a unique way of working on making inferences from auditory (or visual) information! If you have a green screen set up, make sure that you have located and uploaded a variety of green screen backgrounds to Zoom in advance of your session; you can just search for the names of different places in Google Images (e.g., farm, zoo, outer space, park), save the ones you like as jpg files, and upload them all to the Zoom virtual background page by clicking the little plus sign that’s inside a square towards the right of the virtual background screen. You can click on these links to get pictures of places to “visit” or choose your own: park, library, school, grocery store, farm, restaurant, dentist.
During the session, you can give your student clues about a place, such as “This place has swings, trees, and lots of grass for playing-- where are we going?” or “We are going to a place that is dark and that has planets and stars!” After the student takes their guess, change your background to the place you described so they can see if they’re correct! Have the student use sentence frames (with or without visuals such as the free sentence frames resource mentioned above) in order to explain how they inferred the place from what they had heard you say. For example, they could say, “I thought we were going to the park because I heard you say “swings and grass” and I know that swings and grass are things you see at a park” or “I thought that we were going to outer space because I heard you say “planets” and I know that planets are in outer space. Provide clues about the next place so you can take a virtual trip around town (or even out of this world)! For a slightly easier version of this activity, change your background first, then have the student tell you the where they think you are and why (e.g., “I think you are at the farm because I see a pig and I know that pigs live on a farm.”)
Middle and/or High School
Activity One: Teaching the RCIS Strategy for Inferencing
One inferencing strategy that has been helpful to my students is the RCIS Strategy: Read, Connect, Infer, Support. Depending on the student’s level, it can be used with either pictures or text. To find pictures, you can either search on Google images or check out this Inferencing Strategies resource by The Speech Express, which includes a visual for the strategy, as well as sentence frames, visuals for literal vs. inferential questions, and no-prep worksheets with leveled practice using the RCIS strategy with pictures, sentences, and paragraphs. You can also download this RCIS freebie to share with your students.
To teach the strategy using pictures, have students “read” the scene - what do they see? Are there people? What are they doing? What kinds of facial expressions/body language do they have? What else do you see in the picture?
Then, have them connect - what do they KNOW about what they see? What does the image remind you of? Next they infer - how can they combine what they see and what they know to take a guess about what’s happening in the scene? Finally, they support - can they make an inferential statement in which they support their inference with evidence (I think ____ because ____)? If all the clues don’t add up and the inference does not make sense, they must make a new inference. Sometimes I’ll even add information or additional details (i.e. What if I told you that this person just got into a fight with their sister? How does that change things?) to see if students can come up with a new inference.
This same framework can also be used but based off of a short text. If you have students who have mastered the skill using photos but are struggling to make inferences from text, you could pair a sentence with the photo (i.e. Two girls with long, brown hair sat on the couch holding pizza, soda, and a remote control. Both were smiling) and then use that sentence to help guide students through the process of making an inference. Gradually fade the use of photos and transition to text-based inferences and longer passages.
When working at the sentence or paragraph level (i.e. As the sun rose above the trees, I saw its rays sparkle in the puddles on our driveway), first, read (R) the text for details: Sun is rising, above trees, puddles, our driveway. Then connect (C) with background knowledge and our experiences: we know that the sun rises in the morning, trees are in a forest/in the country, puddles happen after it rains, and many homes have a driveway. Next, infer (I): this person is probably at their house in the country watching the sun come up after a rainstorm, and finally, support (S) that inference with evidence.
Activity Two: Whose Shoes?
Choose a pair of shoes from your house or use a picture of a pair of shoes and have students make inferences about the type of person who wore those shoes. What job might they have? What activities might they enjoy? What kind of personality traits could describe the owner of the shoes? They must support each inference with evidence. Students can also read their inference about the owner of a pair of shoes and have other group members guess which pair of shoes the inference belongs to. This resource includes 24 pictures of shoes, suggested questions for each pair, an inferencing chart, and a list of personality traits, but you can also use your own pairs of shoes from your house!!
Activity 3: Career Inferencing
Using a list and descriptions of various careers, have students make inferences about personality traits or specific skills of a person who might have that job. You can use a website like Career Kids (have students choose a career and read the description only) for an explanation of various jobs. For students who need help structuring their inference, you can either use this free chart or give them the sentence frame:
I think someone who works as a (career) is (personality trait) because the job description says (evidence) and I know that (background knowledge).
For example, the job description for sports announcer says:
“Sports announcers are radio and television announcers who specialize in sports. They write and read the sports stories on the air. Sports announcers often attend sporting events. Announcers may work for professional sports teams. Some explain the sporting event live on television or radio as it is happening. Sports announcers sometimes must participate in community activities, such as greeting customers at openings of sporting goods stores.”
After reading this passage, students could infer:
I think someone who works as a sports announcer is confident because the description says that they explain the sporting event on live tv and I know that to speak in front of a lot of people, you must be confident.
Additional activities:
Use their classwork
Have students read a short story, article, or passage from class and either write their own inferential and literal questions or decide whether comprehension questions are literal or inferential. Students can also share their questions with another student and who can then guess which is the literal question and which is the inferential question.
Animated Shorts
Older elementary, middle, or high school students can watch short videos on YouTube while screen sharing and pause the video to ask inferencing questions. These can be videos of the student’s choice or the SLP can select vides such as these animated short videos that are great for targeting speech-language skills.
Activities for Independent Completion
Paper Bag Guessing Game
Have parents put an object from around the house into a paper bag and give their child three clues (i.e. it is a type of kitchen utensil that is made of plastic or metal and is used for flipping pancakes). See if the child can make an inference about the object, and if they get it right, then they can put an object into the bag and give their parents three clues!
Personality Quizzes
A fun and free inferencing idea is to use personality quizzes on National Geographic Kids. Instead of simply having students answer questions, they can make inferences about how a parent, sibling, or the SLP would answer each question, which also involves perspective-taking! You can post the quiz on Google classroom and have students answer each question with the answer they think you’d give, with an inference of why they chose that response.
Another inferencing activity is to have the student try to guess which answers will correspond to each final result. For example, in the quiz, Which Superpower Should You Have?, the student can infer that answering “cheetah” for their favorite animal might result in the super power of “super speed.”
Truth or Myth: Nature
Post a card to your Google Classroom and have students make an inference to guess the answer! i.e. “I think this is the truth/a myth because…” Once the responses have been submitted, post the answer along with the targets card, which has questions for every goal area! Students can practice inferencing from text or identifying literal vs. inferential questions, as well as summarizing, identifying the main idea, listening comprehension, answering WH questions, fluency, reading/conversation-level artic, and more! For the paragraph below, you could have students infer why birds need hollow bones!
Animated shorts/short stories
Assign an animated short/short story and have students write their own literal and inferential questions. Students can post both of their questions as a comment and have another student comment with the type of question and the answer to the question.
Use Social Media
Share a social media post or profile from this resource or take screenshots of any interesting social media accounts that you have found (foodies, travelers, musicians, etc. - just make sure that they’ve been thoroughly vetted before sharing with students). Have your students answer inferencing questions (i.e. what are this person’s hobbies? What can you infer about where they live? etc.) and describe the meaning of the quote in the profile!
