Pictures are Worth a Thousand Inferences

Wow!  What a fun launch week!  I hope that everyone had fun!  We really love all of the comments, which helped us work on ideas for posts.  We noticed a lot of our royal followers felt like comprehension was a hard are to teach, so we have been working on some ideas to post about comprehension and vocabulary, as well as other areas of literacy.  Stay tuned throughout the month as we focus on different literacy skills.

Prize packs were emailed out last night.  If you do not see it in the email you entered with, check your spam folder.  If it is not there, please let us know by leaving your email here.  We had some emails bounce back.  Thank you so much for your patience!

This past week I was working on making inferences with my second graders.  This is always a tough concept for students to grasp, and it definitely takes more than one lesson.  Every year I reread and use my favorite professional book Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading by Tanny McGregor.
This book is full of great ideas to give students real-life strategies to grasp comprehension concepts.  One of my favorite chapters to review is the chapter on inferring.  Tanny makes this concept much more fun through real-life examples like people's trash and shoes.  I wrote an entire post about it, if you go {here} you can read it.

One of the other real-life examples she gives after the concrete examples is to use advertisements to help make an inference.  I couldn't find any advertisements that I liked, but I did have some wonderful pictures from a calendar I had gotten for free.  Do you have any of these hanging around?  This calendar was one of Norman Rockwell paintings.  They are FULL of clues for making inferences!  If you don't have any on hand, Wikipaintings is a perfect place to find some to project onto a whiteboard.

I let the students look at the pictures and tell me what they think might be happening and why.  The key is to get them to talk about why they say those things.  As they told me their thoughts, they changed their minds to make a clearer story.  Here are the pictures and their thoughts.


Here is the first picture with my kids' thoughts:
{Sorry about the glare, crazy lights!}  I love this picture, especially for this time of year!  I asked the kids what they thought was going on.  They went way beyond the literal.  Their thoughts:

The boy is scared because he might be in the man's yard.
The man might be his grandpa.
The boy wants the man's picnic basket because he is hungry.
The man is telling him he did a good job.
The boy may not know who the man is.

When I asked them about their thinking (super important), they told me things like that is how their faces look when they feel that way or that picnic baskets usually have food. Wow!  And I said almost nothing other than, "Hold on, let me write that down!"

Now for the second picture:

And their thoughts:
She is an artist because she has art stuff.
She is running from someone who wants to take her stuff.  (Love this one!)
It is raining, and she does not want her stuff to get wet.
Her art supplies are in the case because I have a case like that with my art stuff in it.

Again, I said very little!  Oh the power of their words!  I love when they teach me to stop and listen, and studies show that kids learn more when THEY do the talking.  We all have to remember that sometimes!

After looking at the pictures, we talked about how they drew the conclusions about the pictures.  We made this anchor chart to help them remember how we make an inference.  

Once we did that, we started looking at various passages and finding key words that helped us draw a conclusion.  I thought this would be mundane, but they loved doing it.  They really enjoyed talking about the why.  And that is the important part, the why.  Kids learn so much better when they can explain their thought processes.

What are some strategies you use to help students grasp the concept of making an inference?  How do you get students to explain the "why"?  What else could help you teach your children about making inferences?

Come back tomorrow when Carla talks more comprehension!





http://readerstars.blogspot.com

30 comments

  1. Andrea...curious what grade level this was? Their observations were wonderful, and I love their justification. Great higher level thinking. Love your post.

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    1. They were second grade boys. I only had two that day because there were a bunch of kids absent, but I love their thoughts too!

      Andrea

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  2. Last year, I taught third grade. I let them watch quick snippets of movies (literally 2-3 minutes, sometimes less) and then make inferences based on what they had seen. We used clips from Harry Potter, some Disney movies, and lots of others. It was a great decision for me to use video clips because the students were so engaged. They came up with some great ideas and were able to see how to support their reasoning before we moved on to using the skill with reading passages.

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    1. Video clips are a great way to get students to make inferences. I have used Charlie Brown videos, especially with Snoopy. He doesn't say much, so you have to really do some thinking. Thanks so much for the great idea and suggestion!

      Andrea

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    2. In the book she recommends Scooby Doo videos. I never thought of that before!! What a great idea. You are right...Snoopy would also be a great choice. Love all the ideas :)
      Em

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  3. Andrea, I use this very same picture-activity to introduce inferring to my students. The beauty of it is that it appeals to students of all levels. I've found a few intriguing pictures to use, thanks to Pinterest. Kids love it! But the best part is that they remember HOW to use the strategy. Love this post! :)

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    1. So many times we forget to ask about the how and why with the kids. I love that once they explained their thinking, they got it!

      Andrea

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  4. I love the professional book, Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading by Tanny McGregor. Your students make some very good inferences from the pictures. I never thought to use pictures from a calendar or paintings. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by! I was surprised by their thoughts when I showed the pictures. I love using old calendars because they are so full of fun pictures, and free or cheap!

      Andrea

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  5. Love these pictures and your kiddos comments. Also, I didn't get my prize pack. The email is littlepurplemidget@gmail.com

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. I did not receive the email. I left both my home email (kimvalera42@gmail.com) as well as my work email (kimberly.valera@fortbendisd.com) just in case one bounced back. Thanks for your help!

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  8. Comprehension Connections is THE best book! I read it two years ago and it totally changed the way I thought about and taught reading! At the time, I was working at a Title I school, and my 4th graders were talking about, and thinking about their reading in ways I couldn't have imagined! I use pictures to teach inferences and draw conclusions as well! Such a concrete way for students to learn such a tricky topic! Thanks for sharing!

    Theresa @ True Life I'm a Teacher!

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  9. I didn't see the prize back either. I gave the address ugamler@boyertownasd.org. Perhaps we should use this one: gamler1993@yahoo.com
    Thanks,
    Ursula

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  10. I love the book Comprehension Connections, but I also LOVE Debbie Miller's Reading with Meaning. Inference is one of my favorite strategies to teach. I use to teach questioning before it, but now I teach inference first, since they use inference to answer questions. I agree we need to let them talk, work through their thinking. I love using Van Allsburg books...right now, The Stranger is a perfect book to use for this strategy. I talk a lot about being detectives when teaching this strategy. This is the strategy that begins them in teaching them to dive deep, uncovering levels of complexity. It is work taking time, giving them time and do LOTS of talking and sharing. Record their thinking publicly. Using wordless picture books is another great resource for this.

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  11. I did not get it either! Try this email klanspa@district158.org

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  12. I did not get the prize pack. My email is slindloff@gmail.com

    Thanks!

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  13. I just reviewed inference with my third graders this past week. I taught inference the week before Winter Break and then decided to review it the week we returned. The day we returned from break, I set up a "crime scene" in my classroom and told the students that someone must have come into my room during break. We worked together and made a T-Chart listing our observations and what we infer about each observation. It went really well. I found that my struggling readers did the best with the activity!

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    1. What a super fun activity! I love the "crime scene" idea. My older students will think it is awesome. I will have do this with my third graders!!

      Andrea

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  14. I checked and did not get the prize pack. My email is essjayneal@gmail.com. Thanks! :)

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  15. I love hearing the way kids think and how what they infer from pictures! They often go to places I never would have thought of. I also didn't receive my prize pack - my email address is lozzaandrew@hotmail.com
    Cheers!

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  16. I did not receive the email either, please try this address instead maur5@yahoo.com
    Thanks

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  17. Great post Andrea! I loved reading the student's responses. There is a program called Visual Thinking Strategies used here in Boston with students and the Gardiner Museum. They use many inferencing strategies to analyze works of art. This lesson reminded me a lot of it.

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  18. I have checked my emails and I didn't get mine. Could you please resend to jarquette@asd5.org
    Thanks!

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  19. I love the idea of using pictures. They really can amaze you with their conversations once you get them thinking! I think I could spend all year teaching inferences. It is SO much fun!

    Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late
    Follow me on Bloglovin!

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  20. Andrea, I also love this activity. I like to cut pictures out of magazines (full page) or off of calendars and glue them to the middle of a piece of chart paper. Then, after discussing with their group, I have my kids write their ideas around the picture. So much fun seeing what they come up with. Great post!

    Jessica

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    1. What a great idea! Then the kids can go back and look at their thoughts! I love it! Thanks for the great idea!!

      Andrea

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  21. Sorry to bother you - again. I didn't get the prize freebies in my e-mail. (Not sure why.) So, I let you know through facebook. I got the dopbox link, but didn't save the link or zip file because I was opening each one up as I had time. Well, that was not a smart idea! My computer froze today, so I had to restart my computer. I went back to the facebook inbox message, but it wasn't there, so I lost the link. It's my fault though, so don't worry about it. Everyone has enough to worry about with school! Thanks for this new adventure and a chance to learn from it. Thanks!
    susanlulu@yahoo.com

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  22. Hi, I am just now reading this. Just wanted to let you know I did not receive the prize pack from last week. I checked all of my folders :( My email is cynthia.arki@gmail.com. Thank you so much!

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  23. I first came across this book while working for a SPED professor. I completely forgot about it...I will definitely have to get myself a copy! :)

    I also did not receive an email, checked the spam folder just in case!
    lindsey.johnston@bcsds.org

    Lindsey
    The Journey of a Beginning Teacher

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