Chapter 5

In Chapter 5, Beers talks about helping students to make inferences as they read. In the beginning of the chapter, she gave two different classes the same passage to read and tell her what was going on. One class was successful at making inferences about what was happening in the text. The second class, which contained struggling readers, had a much more difficult time distinguishing what was happening in the passage. I really liked this example because it helped to show me how students figure out what is happening in a text. I haven’t really thought about how students learn to make inferences. I do it so often now that I don’t even think about what I’m doing as I’m reading. Beers also gave some strategies for teachers to use when trying to help students who struggle with making inferences. One example was to read a short passage aloud everyday and think aloud the inferences that I would make. Then have students decide what types of inferences I’m making based on what I said. She pointed out that the comments teachers make can help students to create certain inferences. I thought this was a really good idea because it’s really hard to show students what you’re doing when you make an inference. At least this way, students know what you’re thinking as your doing it.