QuestioningQuestioning

Making Connections

Making Connections

BackgroundKnowledge(schema)

BackgroundKnowledge(schema)

PredictionsPredictions

Imagination/VisualizationImagination/Visualization

Analysis of Text: Interpretation/

Judgment

Analysis of Text: Interpretation/

Judgment

Drawing Conclusions

Drawing Conclusions

Readers are able to think inferentially when they connect their background of information, ideas, and experiences with the text.

It is important for the reader to have background knowledge about a text they are reading if they are expected to read inferentially.

“When you read, you use all your senses. You see things in your ‘mind’s eye’ and hear the sounds you connect to that about which you are reading.”

~ Guided Reading the Four Blocks Way

• “Proficient readers use images to draw conclusions, to create distinct and unique interpretations of the text, to recall details significant to the text, and to recall a text after it has been read.”

• ~ Ellin Keene

• “Inferring is the process of taking that which is stated in text and extrapolating it to one’s life to create a wholly original interpretation that, in turn, becomes part of one’s beliefs or knowledge.”

• ~ Ellin Keene

• All the processes work together. Each works in concert with the others to aid the reader in comprehending text.

• Anaphoric Inferences: A pronoun or noun- phrase that refers to a previous text constituent or to an entity already introduced in the mental model.

• Bridging Inferences: These are any inferences that a reader needs to systematically or conceptually relate the sentence being read with the previous content. These are sometimes called backward inferences.

• Explanation Based Inferences: The event being read about is explained by a causal chain or network of previous events. These are sometimes called causal antecedent inferences.

• Goal Inferences: The reader infers that an agent has a motive that explains an intentional action.

• Elaborative Inferences: These are properties of entities, facts, and other associations that are not explained by causal mechanisms.

• Predictive Inferences: The reader forecasts what events will causally unfold after the current event that is being read. These are sometimes called causal consequences or forward references.

• Process Inferences: These inferences specify the detailed steps, manner, or dynamic

characteristics of an event as it unfolds.