Description

Ages: 6-10

Grades: 1st-4th

Author: Jean Gilliam DeGaetano, M.A., CCC-SLP

Activities for Mastering Inferences

Solve the “mystery” of hidden meanings!

Take your students’ comprehension skills to the next level with Activities for Mastering Inferences, a comprehensive 74-page resource designed to turn abstract concepts into concrete “detective work.” This workbook helps students realize that an inference is simply a “hint” about what a person means—even when they don’t say the exact words.

Inference skills made simple and fun!

By framing inferencing as “getting the hint,” this resource removes the frustration often associated with higher-level language tasks. As students move through the activities, they build the confidence to solve social and textual mysteries, learning to read between the lines in both academic and real-world settings.

Covers a wide range of inferencing targets:

• Detecting Hints: Learning to identify subtle clues in speech and text.

• Contextual Clues: Using the surrounding information to draw logical conclusions.

• Implicit vs. Explicit: Differentiating between what is clearly stated and what is suggested.

• Social & Academic Application: Activities that bridge the gap between classroom reading and playground interactions.

Targets key comprehension goals:

• Critical Thinking: Encouraging students to pause and analyze information beyond the surface level.

• Reading Comprehension: Improving the ability to follow plots and understand character motivations.

• Social Pragmatics: Helping students understand “what wasn’t said” in social conversations.

• Problem Solving: Strengthening the logical “if/then” connections in language processing.

How to Use:

1. The Introduction: Use the provided definitions to explain that an inference is just a “hint” waiting to be found.

2. The Investigation: Work through the activity pages, asking students: “What clues did you find that weren’t explicitly stated?”

3. The Conclusion: Have the student summarize the “hidden meaning” based on the evidence they gathered.

4. Generalization: Challenge students to find “hints” in their own daily conversations or favorite books using their new detective skills!

Includes:

• 74 Pages of engaging activities and worksheets.

• Targeted Exercises ranging from simple picture-based hints to complex verbal scenarios.

• Clear Explanations that help students define and internalize what an inference is.