Inferring From an Information Text

1. Write one sentence on the board: "A single beaver family can cut down more than two hundred trees in a year."
2. Ask: "This sentence tells you one fact. What does it suggest that it does not say?" Take three answers and write them under it. Expect: "beavers have strong teeth," "the woods near a beaver pond get thin," "beavers work very hard."
3. Point at each suggestion and ask: "Do those exact words appear in the sentence?" They do not. Say that every one of them is an inference — and that some are better supported than others, which is what the lesson is about.

1. Display the numbered passage: "(1) Beavers build dams across streams using sticks, mud and stones. (2) A single family can cut down more than two hundred trees in a year. (3) Behind the dam, the water rises and spreads into a wide, still pond. (4) Within a few years, frogs, ducks and fish move into the pond. (5) Trees that once stood on the banks die as their roots sit under water. (6) When the beavers leave, the dam slowly breaks and the pond drains, leaving a flat, grassy meadow."
2. Read it aloud once with no stopping. Then draw the "Stated / Inferred" chart. Under Stated write "Beavers build dams with sticks, mud and stones (sentence 1)." Ask why it goes there: you can put a finger on the exact words.
3. Model the inference out loud. Write under Inferred: "Beavers change the land for many other living things." Then ask the class: "Which sentence made me think that?" Take sentence 4 (frogs, ducks and fish move in). Then ask for a second sentence that points the same way: sentence 6 (the pond becomes a meadow). Write "(4) and (6)" beside the inference.
4. Explain why two details are required and not one: a single fact can point at lots of different ideas, as the warm-up showed. When two separate sentences point at the same idea, it stops being a guess.
5. Now test a weak inference in front of them. Write "Beavers are bad for every animal." Ask: "Which sentences support this, and does any sentence argue against it?" Sentence 5 (trees die) supports part of it, but sentence 4 contradicts it — frogs, ducks and fish do well. Cross it out. Say that an inference the text argues against has to be withdrawn, however confident it felt.
6. Write the sentence frame on the board and leave it up: "The text never says ___, but I can infer it because sentence ___ says ___ and sentence ___ says ___."

“The text tells you some things straight out. An inference is something the text shows you without saying it. Your job is to say the unsaid thing, then point to two different places in the text that made you think it. One clue could be luck. Two clues is evidence.”

1. Hand out the paired passage: "(1) Before electric lights, a keeper lived in every lighthouse. (2) Each evening he climbed 120 steps to light the lamp. (3) Every few hours through the night, he climbed again to trim the wick and add oil. (4) Many lighthouses stood on rocks miles from the nearest town. (5) Supply boats came only once a month, and only when the sea was calm."
2. Ask the pair question: "What was a keeper's life like? The text never tells you." Pairs write one inference using the frame on the board and underline the two sentences they use.
3. Circulate. The answers to fish for are "lonely" (sentences 4 and 5) and "tiring" (sentences 2 and 3). If a pair writes "He climbed 120 steps," ask: "Can you point to those exact words? Then it is stated. What does it suggest about his nights?"
4. Pairs swap with the next pair and try to knock the inference down by finding a sentence that argues against it. Take one that fell and one that survived to the board, and say aloud what made the survivor strong.

“Before you write your idea down, put two fingers on two different sentences. If you cannot find the second finger, you do not have an inference yet — you have a hunch.”

1. Students work through the printable practice sheet alone. The passage is printed on the sheet, so nobody is waiting for a text.
2. Before they start, remind them that each answer needs the two-sentence frame. Students who finish early write a second inference about the lighthouse passage: "Why did the boats come only when the sea was calm — what does that tell you about the rocks?"

1. Read two statements and have students show one finger for stated, two for inferred: "Beavers build dams" (stated, sentence 1) and "Beaver ponds help ducks" (inferred, sentences 3 and 4). Anyone who shows one finger for the second is still treating "true" as "stated" — note who.