Making inferences

What Is It?

Making an inference involves using what you know to make a guess about what you don't know, or reading between the lines. Readers who make inferences use the clues in the text along with their own experiences to help them figure out what is not directly said, making the text personal and memorable. Helping students make texts memorable will help them gain more personal pleasure from reading, read the text more critically, and remember and apply what they have read.

Why Is It Important?

Researchers have confirmed that thoughtful, active, proficient readers are metacognitive; they think about their own thinking during reading. They can identify when and why the meaning of the text is unclear to them, and can use a variety of strategies to solve comprehension problems or deepen their understanding of a text (Duffy et al. 1987).
Proficient readers use their prior knowledge and textual information to draw conclusions, make critical judgments, and form unique interpretations from text. Inferences may occur in the form of conclusions, predictions, or new ideas (Anderson and Pearson, 1984).

            Writers often do not explain everything to the reader. For example, in stories, the writer may not tell the reader the time or place. Often readers have to guess these things. This is called making inferences or “reading between the lines.” Readers frequently need to find small clues that lead them to infer—understand—things that the author doesn’t explicitly state. They need to use information in the text to guess other things about the text. For example, you might read: “The waves rushed up around his legs and hecould feel the coarse sand between his toes.” You would then infer that this person was at the beach.In this workshop, we will start out simple with making inferences based on conversations. We will then go on to exercises in which you will make inferences based on sentences and then short reading passages.

        EXERCISE 1:

Read the following conversations and answers the questions.

A: Look at the long line! Do you think we’ll get in?

B: I think so. Some of these people already have tickets.

A: How much are the tickets?

B: Only nine dollars for the first show. I’ll pay

A: Thanks. I’ll buy the popcorn.

1.Where are these people? (10)

2.What are they talking about?(10)

3.Who are these people?(10)

EXERCISE 2:

Read the passages. IF the statements following the passages are valid inferences based on

those passages, mark the items . If the statements cannot be inferred from the passage, mark those items X The term “neon light” was originally applied to a particular type of vapor lamp using the inert, colorless gas neon. A long tube was filled with neon, which then became luminous at low  pressure when an electric current was passed through it. The lamp then emitted the characteristic reddish-orange light of neon.Today, the term “neon light” is given to lamps of this general type which may be filled with a variety of gases, depending on the color that is desired. Argon, for

example, is used to produce blue light. Colors can also be altered by changing the color of the glass tube. The tubes must be quite long in all these lamps to produce light efficiently. As a result, high voltages are required. Neon tube lamps are not practical for indoor illumination, but they have found widespread outdoor use in glowing, colorful advertising signs.

______ 1. The inert gas neon is reddish-orange in color. (10)

______ 2. The meaning of the term “neon light” haschanged over time.(10)

______ 3. Today’s “neon lights” never actually cotain neon. (10)

______ 4. All types of “neon lights” work on the game general principles.(10)

______ 5. When stimulated by electricity, different types of gas may produce different colors.(10)

______ 6. Modern “neon lights: are more efficient than those used in the past.(10)

______ 7. The primary market for neon lights is businesses rather than private households.(10)