# data[].attributes.body
Marzano, Robert (2010). "The Art & Science of Teaching Inference". Educational Leadership, Volume 67, Number 7, p.80-81.

Make students aware that they make inferences all the time, when they "fill in the blanks" in a text, through predictions and questioning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
April 2010 | Volume 67 | Number 7
Reimagining School Pages 80-81

Robert J. Marzano

Thinking and reasoning processes-such as problem solving, decision making, and the like-have been identified as legitimate and even necessary 21st century skills. Although they are not new skills, what is new in the last 20 years is that we've become aware that some cognitive processes are foundational to higher-order thinking. Inference is one of those foundational processes.

To begin, it's useful to make students aware of the fact that they generate inferences all the time. Teachers can foster this awareness in a variety of ways. For example, if elementary students are reading a story about two children walking alone through the forest, the teacher might ask them to predict what will happen next. One student might report that "something bad is probably going to happen."

As students articulate their predictions, the teacher would point out that these things will not necessarily happen. Rather, students are filling in information that the story has not yet revealed. They're making inferences.

Similarly, consider middle school science students watching a video about the Earth's orbit around the sun. The teacher might pause and ask, "Given that the sun is a source of heat, what conclusions might you make about seasonal changes on Earth?" One student might understandably (although mistakenly) conclude that the elliptical orbit of the Earth is the cause of the change in seasons-that when the Earth is farthest from the sun, it's winter, and when the Earth is closest to the sun, it's summer. As students offer various conclusions, the teacher would point out that they are presenting their own opinions; the answers are not found thus far in the video clip. Again, the students are making inferences.

Four Questions to Pose

Teachers can use a simple process to guide students in analyzing the effectiveness of their inferences. It involves posing four questions drawn from what researchers call elaborative interrogation. Typically, the teacher poses these questions to students and interacts with them around the answers.

Question 1: What is my inference?

The first question helps students become aware that they have just made an inference-that is, that they have just filled in information that was not directly presented to them. Students might make two types of inferences. Default inferences are automatic assumptions. The elementary student who predicts that "something bad is probably going to happen" to the two children walking in the woods has most likely read other stories about lost children and assumes that the plots will be similar.

A second type of inference is a reasoned inference, a conclusion that we make about a topic on the basis of available information. The science student who concludes that winter occurs when the Earth is farthest from the sun and summer occurs when it is closest to the sun is making a reasoned inference. She knows that the closer you are to a source of heat, the warmer you will feel and that the farther away you are from the source, the colder you will feel. She reasonably, but mistakenly, concludes that the elliptical orbit of the Earth explains its seasons.

Question 2: What information did I use to make this inference?

As students ponder this second question, teachers should query them about their thinking and guide them in articulating the premises on which they've based their inferences.

Consider the default inference the student made about the lost children. Answering this second question makes the student aware that, on the basis of his familiarity with other stories, he has created a rule that he now uses. For the student who made a reasoned inference about the Earth's orbit and the change of seasons, answering this second question would help her realize that she made this inference on the basis of her generalization about temperature and proximity to a source of heat.

Question 3: How good was my thinking?

Once students have identified the premises on which they've based their inferences, they can engage in the most powerful part of the process-examining the validity of their thinking. With default inferences, the teacher simply asks students to consider other possible premises: "Do you think there are stories about children lost in the woods in which something bad does not happen? What are some other things that might happen?"

With reasoned inferences, it's useful to examine both the truth of the premise and the validity of the thinking that led to the inference. In the case of the science student, her thinking was valid. In the absence of other factors, a decidedly elliptical orbit would have a significant influence on Earth's climate, given the relationship between temperature and proximity to a heat source.

However, as the teacher guides the student in examining her thinking-by asking her to explain her thinking and then pointing out misconceptions or missing elements in her explanations- the student comes to understand that she was operating from a flawed premise.

Through such an interaction, the student is able to articulate the fact that although we often describe the Earth's orbit as elliptical, it's actually closer to a circle; thus, the change in distance to the sun at different points in the orbit is not great enough to create a strong effect. The change in the Earth's tilt is far more dramatic. During the Northern Hemisphere's summer, for example, the land north of the equator is tilted toward the sun, allowing more of the sun's energy to heat it. Thus the tilt, rather than the shape of the orbit, is the stronger influence on seasonal changes.

Question 4: Do I need to change my thinking?

The final step in the process is for students to consider possible changes in their thinking. The point here is not to invalidate students' original inferences, but rather to help them develop the habit of continually updating their thinking as they gather new information.

The elementary student who has made the inference about stories with lost children might be alert for different patterns in story plots in the future. The science student might become more aware of the need to consider additional facts before coming to a conclusion when examining physical phenomena.

Stepping into Higher-Level Thinking

Making inferences is the foundation to many of the higher-level thinking processes that we want students to use more effectively in the 21st century. Although all students make inferences quite naturally, teachers can use strategies like these throughout the curriculum to help them become more thoughtful in their inferences.

Endnote

Ozgungor, S., & Guthrie, J. T. (2004). Interactions among elaborative interrogation, knowledge, and interest in the process of constructing knowledge from text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96(3), 437-443.

Robert J. Marzano is Cofounder and CEO of Marzano Research Laboratory in Denver, Colorado. He is the author of The Art and Science of Teaching (ASCD, 2007) and coauthor, with Mark W. Haystead, ofMaking Standards Useful in the Classroom (ASCD, 2008). To contact Marzano or participate in a study regarding a specific instructional strategy, visit www.marzanoresearch.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching Inference - Educational Leadership

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
April 2010 | Volume 67 | Number 7 Reimagining School Pages 80-81 Robert J. Marzano Thinking and reasoning processes-such as problem solving, decision making, and the like-have been identified as legitimate and even necessary 21st century skills.

# data[].attributes.body
Ideas for mini lessons & types of inference instruction

# data[].attributes.body
Deptula, Maura. (2013). "Teaching Inference as a Reading Strategy: The What, The How, The Why?. Retrieved from http://www.scilearn.com/blog/teaching-inference-as-a-reading-strategy.php

In order for students to develop solid inferencing skills, they first must be fluent readers. When fluency is attained, it frees their mind up for deep thinking about the content of the text, rather than working on the mechanics of reading.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Strategies for teaching reading skills

Reading is one of the most rewarding and challenging skills to teach. It involves building upon solid strategies and taking your students from the mechanics of reading to the magic of the written word. Teaching inference skills playfully in the classroom helps us bring literature to life and connects our students with writers who artfully fill the pages of their books.

Being able to infer is a critical comprehension skill. As readers, students must approach texts like detectives and find the meaning that lies behind the words that they read. For many students this task is fun and exciting, but for some it can be daunting.

For students who are struggling with learning to infer, working on precursor skills can help. Two important precursors to inferring are automaticity and background knowledge.

Reading Automaticity

When we say that students need to develop automaticity, we mean that they need to be able to read with enough ease and accuracy so that their brains have time to focus on the meaning and the message of the text. Building fluency with a program like Reading Assistant can help students achieve automaticity. Without this groundwork laid, students are simply too busy working on decoding words to seek out meaning in the text.

Background Knowledge

In order to make an inference, students need to have some background knowledge about what they are reading. We can support them by building context and asking thought-provoking pre-reading questions.

Teaching Strategies

Teaching inference as a reading strategy can be great fun. Here are some ideas you can use in class with your students:

Challenge your students to be sleuths. Give them a riddle and have them brainstorm possible answers. Explore how they reached different conclusions about what the correct answer might be and probe them on their analysis process.

Assign groups of students different perspectives to take as they read. For example, one group can focus on the historical period of a story, another on the social aspects of a story, a third can focus on the events that preceded the story, and a final group can develop ideas around what the future holds.

Ask students to write about their inferences. A simple exercise of having them jot down a note about finding hidden meaning in text can help them focus more and recognize when the author is conveying meaning beyond the words. (A simple worksheet with the following sentences works well: I think ____________. What led me to think this was __________. )

Ask students to infer the meaning of complex vocabulary words presented in sentences. For example: She found the data counterintuitive because the many times she had tested herself her results had been quite different.

As students approach more complex texts and work more rigorously to meet the Common Core Standards, they will need to rely more on their ability to infer meaning from text. Solidly developed inference skills will enable readers to understand and apply the knowledge they acquire from print in school. And, perhaps more important, solid inference skills will also support a greater love of reading throughout their lives.

References:

Kurland, D. (2000). Inference: Reading Ideas as Well as Words. Retrieved from http://www.criticalreading.com/inference_reading.htm

Graesser, A.C. & Clark, L.F. (1985). The Generation of Knowledge-Based Inferences during Narrative Comprehension. In author G. Rickheit & H. Strohner (Ed.) Inferences in Text Processing (pp. 53-94), Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.

Canada. Ontario Ministry of Education. Think Literacy: Cross-Cultural Approaches, Grades 7-12.(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/studentsuccess/thinkliteracy/files/reading.pdf

Student Engagement Strategies That Can Help Your Learners Read Better

Why Dr. Timothy Rasinski Thinks Reading Fluency Should Be "Hot!"
The Reading Assistant program can help students rapidly increase reading fluency while simultaneously building comprehension skills-including inference. about how Reading Assistant technology makes every minute count.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching Inference as a Reading Strategy: The What, the How, and the Why

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reading is one of the most rewarding and challenging skills to teach. It involves building upon solid strategies and taking your students from the mechanics of reading to the magic of the written word. Teaching inference skills playfully in the classroom helps us bring literature to life and connects our students with writers who artfully fill the pages of their books.

# data[].attributes.body
Dickson, Violet. (2012). "Examining Questioning Techniques in the Classroom". Retrieved from cte-unt.blogspot.com.

Student learning is enhanced with the inclusion of deeper level questioning. Pushing students to make inferences, and include evidence to support those ideas is essential to making students examine their thinking.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Violet Dickson
Cluster Specialist
Arts, AV Technology & Communication

"To raise new questions, new problems, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and makes real advances." Albert Einstein

A few years ago, I decided to investigate the different types of student and teacher talk that occur every day in an ordinary classroom. To accomplish this, I video-taped my classroom for a period of six weeks and afterwards analyzed the videos as part of a teacher action research project (Dickson, 2005). It was an eye-opening experience!

I was familiar with the decade-long study conducted by Allington and Johnston (2002) that identified productive student talk as the "single most striking feature in effective classrooms" (p. 463). "Productive" talk in this study was defined as student discussions, elaboration, collaboration, and other means of negotiating information that allowed students to become active participants in the learning process. Productive student talk was also thought to be a result of thoughtful and strategic questioning on the part of the classroom teacher.

Effective questioning strategies are some of a teacher's most valuable tools. Teachers' questioning skills are important for "eliciting student reflection and challenging deeper student engagement" (Danielson, 1996, p. 92). However, not all questions are created equal. They range from low level, rapid-fire questions that result in short answers to higher-level, open-ended questions that lead to problem-solving, reasoning, and the ability to learn in puzzling situations (Joyce, Weil, & Calhoun, 2000). It is estimated that most questions asked by teachers (approximately 60%) are lower cognitive questions, 20% are higher cognitive questions, and 20% are procedural (Allington & Johnston, 2002; Applegate, Quinn, & Applegate, 2002; Cotton, 2001).

I've got to say that watching yourself and your classroom on tape is an interesting experience. I was initially pleased that, although some talk in the classroom was off-task, most of the student talk was productive and related to the activity or project in which students were engaged. I attributed this to the fact that I incorporated project-based learning activities into many of the lessons, thereby engaging students more effectively in the learning process.

This little experiment opened my eyes to some flaws in my teaching style and allowed me to make immediate changes. I became more aware of the questions I asked, and I made a conscious effort to deepen students' learning by including questions that encouraged them to go beyond concrete information. One technique I began using was to piggy-back lower-level questions with higher-level, inferential-type questions and then ask students to elaborate further on the information.

Marzano (2007) encourages the use of questioning techniques that "require students to elaborate on information" (p. 48). This can be accomplished by pairing general inferential questions with elaborative interrogation-types of questions. General inferential questioning requires students to go beyond the information presented: "What do you think would happen if...?" or "What do you think will happen as a result?" Elaborative interrogation questions go beyond a student's inferential response by adding: "Why do you think this is true?" Requiring students to elaborate information forces them to examine their thinking, leading to the use of higher processing skills and resulting in higher levels of responses.

Another questioning technique that has received quite a bit of attention involves the identification of "essential questions". Wiggins and McTighe (2005) define essential questions as those that lie at the heart of any subject and help to uncover a subject through inquiry. Essential questions "do not yield a single, straightforward answer, but produce different plausible responses, about which thoughtful and knowledgeable people may disagree" (p. 342). Some examples of essential questions include:

In addition to the teacher posing essential questions, Marzano (2007) suggests students learn to identify their own essential questions, leading to further exploration of a topic of their interest. Teachers can assist students in this process by providing them with essential questions that lead in to a preferred topic of study. Some examples of essential lead-in questions include:

I believe it is vital for teachers to examine and reflect on their own questioning techniques from time to time. Thoughtful and skillful questioning by the teacher leads to rich classroom discussions and productive student talk.Questioning motivates students to examine content to a greater extent, reflect on their understanding, explore new possibilities, and become more engaged in the learning process. Teachers' well-crafted questions also provide modeling for students, teaching them to form their own questions that will challenge them to explore content on a deeper level.

Cotton, K. (2001). Classroom questioning. Portland, OR: North West Regional Educational Laboratory.

Joyce, R., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2000). Models of teaching (6 th ed). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2 nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Examining Questioning Techniques in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Violet Dickson Cluster Specialist Arts, AV Technology & Communication "To raise new questions, new problems, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and makes real advances." Albert Einstein A few years ago, I decided to investigate the different types of student and teacher talk that occur every day in an ordinary classroom.

# data[].attributes.body
Sosnowski, Jane. "How to Develop Inferential Reading Skills in Elementary Level Students" Retrieved from education.seattlepi.com.

There are multiple ways to teach inference: modeling reading strategies; question and answer sessions; using elements of the story; making inferences about words.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Develop Inferential Reading Skills in Elementary Level Students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Developing inferences in reading is a difficult skill for young people to master as it requires them to go beyond simple comprehension of a story. Teaching inference to young students involves modeling reading, showing students how to find clues and showing students how to use known information to support inferences.

# data[].attributes.body
Cotton, Kathleen. "Classroom Questioning". Retrieved from www.learner.org

Best results are found by modeling the inferencing process, and then gradually releasing students to independence. "Higher cognitive questions are defined as those which ask students to mentally manipulate bits of information previously learned to create an answer or to support an answer with logically-reasoned evidence."

# data[].attributes.body
Strasburg, Meg. (2013). "Making Inferences : Helping Students Make Inferences Using Questioning Strategies". Retrieved from gse.edu.emu.

Inferencing skills can be advanced through the use of pointed, high-level questioning. "Future instruction aimed to positively impact students' inferential reading skills should focus on promoting metacognition and reference to text, expanding understanding of inference type, while employing strategies in various settings."