Making inferences can be a tricky skill for students to learn. It can be an especially difficult skill for students who have difficulty decoding and reading fluently at the grade level expectation. Students can spend so much time simply trying to figure out what the words on the page say that by the time they finish reading a passage, they have no idea what they actually read. Comprehension is hard when decoding is hard, and advanced reading skills like making inferences are even harder.
One way to still develop advanced reading skills even with students who are not yet fluent readers is to utilize pictures.
Pictures provide a concrete, accessible avenue for students to dive into advanced skills.
With pictures students can learn, practice, and develop inference making and then transfer those skills to text-based resources as their mastery increases.
The main resource I use to help student develop their inference making skills is: Making Inferences from Pictures
It has 40 weeks worth of high-quality photos. Each week has five photos (one for each day) for a total of 200 pictures altogether.
The best part of the resource is that it is flexible. It can be used as a quick bell-ringer activity to get students seated, working, and thinking. Teachers can also use the lesson to build into larger conversations about inference or utilize narrative writing extension activities.
Have you used these Daily Picture-Based Inference Prompts in your classroom? I'd love to hear about it in the comments section!
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