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Lesson · Grade 4 · English Language Arts

Making an Inference: Reading Between the Lines

  • Grade 4
  • English Language Arts
  • 1 min 4 s
  • British Columbia
  • BC4-EN-12

A three-sentence passage about Noah never says what happened to him, and the video shows how a reader works it out: three clues in the text (a dripping coat, wet prints, gurgling gutters) are added to what the reader already knows about rain to make the inference that Noah was caught in the rain. The passage is then written again with that inferred sentence slipped in between the lines, and the video ends on the recap "Clues + what you know = inference".

Concept: Making an inference

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In one sentence

The question this lesson answers

Writers do not tell you everything.

Read this short passage.

Transcript

What the lesson says

Writers do not tell you everything.

Read this short passage.

What happened to Noah? The text never says.

Working it out from clues is called making an inference.

Step one: find clues in the text.

Clue one: a dripping coat.

Clue two: wet prints across the hall.

Clue three: the gutters gurgled.

Step two: add what you already know.

You know that rain soaks you and fills the gutters.

Step three: put the clues and what you know together.

So Noah was caught in the rain.

Here is the passage with your inference written in.

The writer never said it, but you read between the lines.

Clues in the text plus what you know make an inference.

Curriculum

Where this fits

British Columbia, Grade 4

English Language Arts, Strategies and processes: reading strategiesBC4-EN-12

Previous: Prefixes and Suffixes: Reading a Long Word in PartsNext: Summarizing: Keep What Matters Most

British Columbia, Grade 5

English Language Arts, Strategies and processes: reading strategiesBC5-EN-13

Previous: Word parts: prefixes, roots and suffixesNext: Summarizing: Keep What Matters Most

British Columbia, Grade 6

English Language Arts, Strategies and processes: reading strategiesBC6-EN-15

Previous: Word parts: prefixes, roots and suffixesNext: Summarizing: Keep What Matters Most

British Columbia, Grade 7

English Language Arts, Strategies and processes: reading strategiesBC7-EN-15

Previous: Word parts: prefixes, roots and suffixesNext: Summarizing: Keep What Matters Most

This lesson is also listed in Grade 5, Grade 6 and Grade 7.

The outcomes and strands follow the British Columbia curriculum.

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