Primary School Inference Making Strategies: From Research to Practice

Abstract

Inferences reflect a student’s ability to use background knowledge, values, and beliefs combined with evidence and logical reasoning. Research shows that students with higher levels of inferencing skills score higher on tests of reading comprehension than do students with lower levels of inferencing skills. This is true for both primary school age students [1] and adolescent readers [2]. Students require instruction in making inferences to analyze various types of text [3]. Using explicit methods to foster inferential thinking and reading comprehension results in improved reading comprehension [4]. Instructional practices that engage primary school students to seek and use cues to make inferences using objects, pictures, words, simple sentences, and text passages appear to produce positive reading outcomes [5].