Inferring: "the heartbeat of comprehension"

When it comes to understanding a story, inferring and summarizing help a reader a great deal. What’s wonderful about these two strategies is that students already use them! When a child is asked, “How was your friend’s birthday party?” They might answer with an adjective, and then giving a brief summary of what they did. They may answer, “It was fun! We played games and ate cake and ice cream, and Riley loved the present I gave her.”

Pointing out to students how they are already using reading comprehension strategies in other daily situations is a great place to start. Pat Johnson and Katie Keier (2010) stress that it is not important for students to be able to name what they are doing—they do not need to have a term for inferring or for summarizing. Understanding these concepts and being able to use them is the real goal. 

One way that teachers and parents can help their readers is through modeling these strategies when reading aloud. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a great mini-lesson that a teacher used in the multiage classroom that I observed last semester. As she read Poppleton, the students made inferences about Poppleton’s feelings, and how they changed throughout the story. By watching the demonstration and think aloud, the students knew exactly what they were supposed to do when they went to read independently. They successfully marked how they thought the characters were feelings in their books with sticky notes.

There are countless books that lend themselves nicely to making inferences. For example, in stories where the main character is never actually described by the narrator, but rather readers can figure out what he or she is like based on their actions. Stories that have a conflict or a mystery are also great for making inferences because the plot works towards resolving the problem, and meanwhile the reader can use clues and other information from the story to infer how it will be resolved. Poems are another great choice for trying to figure out meaning, because the poets convey so many ideas in a limited amount of words.

Every year in third grade, students across America will be asked, “What is the main idea of this passage?” on a standardized test (Johnson & Keier, 2010). As teachers and parents, we can help our students long before that third grade test—and not even for the sake of the test. We can begin talking about reading, thinking about the story, thinking about the characters, making predictions about the characters, and summarizing main points early on so that children grow up understanding the power of a story—for their own benefit. There are plenty of opportunities to build the concept of inferring and summarizing in everyday events. It is up to us to make the best use of them.