Making Inferences

What is an inference? Writers of fiction often show their characters in action and allow them to speak for themselves. Readers then have the job of deciding what those actions and words mean and what they reveal about the characters, the events of the story and the message the author intends to send. In other words, readers must draw inferences about what they read. An inference in fiction is a reasonable conclusion or judgment about some element of a story based on the information given in the story and the reader's personal knowledge of how the world works.

• a reasonable conclusion or judgment about some element in a story based on information from the story

• a reasonable conclusion or judgment about some element in a story

• information contained in a story that leads a reader to the theme

• information in the story to help a reader ask questions and make connections

How to Draw Inferences

1. You look for clues in the text, little pieces of information that seem to relate to the missing information or your question.
2. You think about what you already know from your own experience in the real world.
3. You put these two pieces of the puzzle together in a logical way to produce a reasonable conclusion that supplies the missing piece of information or the answer to your question.

Drawing an inference requires your background knowledge and information from the text?

• TRUE

• FALSE

Drawing an Inference

You've made many inferences in your life, but you might not even know it. For instance, your cat runs up to you the minute you step through the door. She meows, rubs your legs, runs into the kitchen and stares at the cupboard where you normally store the cat food. It doesn't take much effort to figure out that your cat wants food. You've just drawn an inference.

You draw many inferences in your everyday life?

• TRUE

• FALSE

____ in fiction is a reasonable conclusion or judgment about some element of a story based on the information given in the story and the reader's personal knowledge of how the world works.

• A clue

• A question

• An inference

• An implication

What is the first step readers must take to draw an inference?

• Put the pieces together in a logical way to produce a reasonable conclusion

• Think about what they already know from their own experience in the real world

• Look for clues in the text

What is the third step readers must take to draw an inference?

• Put the pieces together in a logical way to produce a reasonable conclusion

• Think about what they already know from their own experience in the real world

• Look for clues in the text

Do writers always tell their readers exactly what they mean all the time, or do they allow their readers to draw conclusions and discover at least some of the meaning on their own?

• They allow their readers to draw conclusions and discover at least some of the meaning on their own.

• They tell their readers exactly what they mean all the time.

Drawing Inferences Let's go back to your cat and apply the process for making an inference. At first, you might wonder what your cat is doing. You look for clues in your cat's behavior and notice how she meows and rubs your legs to get your attention and how she stares at the food cupboard. You also think about what you already know from past experience; your cat has done this before, and you've responded by giving her food. So you put those two pieces together in a logical way and correctly infer that your cat wants food. Drawing an inference from a book follows the same process of drawing inferences in your everyday life?

• True

• False

What is the second step readers must take to draw an inference?

• Put the pieces together in a logical way to produce a reasonable conclusion

• Think about what they already know from their own experience in the real world

• Look for clues in the text

Which of the following statements is true?

• Writers never leave out any information in their texts.

• Writers always tell their readers everything that is going on.

• Writers always make their meanings perfectly clear.

• Writers sometimes seem to leave out pieces of information in their texts.