By Sara Finegan 

         Kids with learning disabilities often struggle with reading comprehension.   As I stated in an earlier post, reading comprehension is a relationship with the written word comprised of a number of behaviors.  One of these behaviors is inferring.  

         Making inferences about characters, the setting, motives, the problem, and possible solutions requires that a reader move beyond literal comprehension and start putting pieces of the story together.  This is often very difficult for the struggling reader and when a child has expressive or receptive language deficits, it can be even more complicated.

         In General Education, we teach that making inferences while we read is like reading  between the lines to see what the author is showing us about what’s going on in the story.  This is an excellent explanation for most of us, but when a child is a concrete thinker who focuses almost entirely on the surface meaning of things, it doesn’t resonate very well.

          Students with learning disabilities who don’t make inferences while reading are not going to learn how to do so by explanation:  I can yack all I want about inferring and even model how it’s done, but that is unlikely to have positive results unless we get the kids to actually start doing it.

          And the way to do that is to show the kids that they already do make inferences, constantly, in their own lives.

          Start by taking a look at the types of inferences we all make each and every day: 

• We infer how people are feeling by their facial expressions and body language.
• We infer people’s attitudes by comments they make and tones of voice. 
• We make inferences about why our students are behaving certain ways based on what we know of their home situations, health, or relationships with their peers. 

           I like to tell the kids stories about real-life events and encourage them to recognize the inferences we make:

Me:  Yesterday morning, the sink in the kitchen was clogged, and my husband spent about 30 minutes before we left for school trying to fix it.  I was popping in and out to check on his progress while I was getting dressed.  He had his head in the plumbing and was giving these deep sighs, like this (sighing heavily) and muttering under his breath like this (muttering) and at one point he even cursed at the cats.  (Pause for comments.) 

Me:  Anyone?

Jonathan:  Oh, he was mad.

Sandra:  I bet he was frustrated! 

Me:  See, you two made excellent inferences!  Jonathan, what made you infer that he was angry? 

Jonathan:  He was cursing.  And that muttering thing. 

Me:  Yep, yep.  And Sandra, how did you know he was frustrated? 

Sandra:  He was sighing.  And muttering.  And my dad curses when he’s frustrated or mad. 

Me:  Terrific!  Both of you could support your inferences with info from my story.  Anyway, this afternoon when we came home, he called the plumber.  I had to go to the grocery store, so I missed it when the plumber got there.  But when I came home, Richard was calling to the bank to find out how much money we have in our account, and looking very serious.  He said “We might not be able to buy that new stereo this month.”  (Pause for comments.) 

Jayme:  He was disappointed. 

Simone:  It’s going to be expensive to fix the sink. 

Me:  Oh, wow!  Two good inferences!  Jayme, what made you infer that he was disappointed?

 Jayme:  Because he looked serious and he can’t buy the new stereo now.

 Me:  Ah, good!  Simone?  What makes you infer that the repair is going to cost a lot of money? 

Simone:  Because he had to call the bank. 

Me:  Anything else?

Tommy:  Because he won’t be able to afford the new stereo.

TIP:  Keep showing the kids how they already make a lot of inferences.  Name what they’re doing:  they won’t connect the fact that they’re making inferences with the reading strategy unless it has a name that is used frequently and that they understand through experience.

          The next step involves making inferences about visuals in print.  I like to use cartoons and comics.  I’ve got a bunch of them laminated that I pull out and let the kids mess with for awhile.  I like to listen to them talk about the pictures, and I ask some open-ended questions, such as “how do the people feel?”  “Why is he doing that?”  “What is the problem in this picture?” 

         When we have a share-out about the comics and illustrations, we identify all of the inferences that the kids have made.  Then I explain that they are going to learn how to do it when they read stories, too.  

         You can also have kids practice making inferences during read-aloud time.  When you are reading a high-interest story out loud, whether it’s Harry Potter, or The Book of Three, or Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, you can pause periodically and ask for some inferences.  Keep a chart of all of the inferences the students suggest, and ask them to track those inferences as the story moves on. 

         I like to have kids do some short-text inferring practice in guided reading groups and also independently before they move to practicing the strategy with their independent reading books.  You can throw together some paragraphs and multiple-choice or short answer worksheets that ask kids to make inferences about characters or situations based on passages.  I’ve included some here as examples.

         Practicing making inferences in independent reading work should take place over a period of time with accountability and exclusivity. 

• When I say “a period of time,” I mean that you should encourage and support the reader for between a week and a month as she or he develops competence in the strategy. 
• When I say “accountability,” I mean that your student needs to be able to show you the inferences being made.  Sometimes this can be by giving the child post-its and asking him or her to record each inference on a post-it during reading time and placing the post-it in the margin of the passage in question.  Then, during conferring time, you can talk about the inferences made and see how the child is thinking and processing.  This will give you insight into where there still may be some weaknesses and what supports you might need to add.
• When I say “exclusivity,” I mean that we should not ask a child to practice more than one brand-new comprehension strategy at a time.  Give the student time to develop strength and ability in making inferences, to gain experience in how it’s done and what it means during his or her independent reading. 

         There will be time later to work on other strategies.  In a demanding classroom, students learn one step at a time, strengthening each new facet of thinking until it can be added to their repertoire of skills.

connections · demanding classroom · expressive language · high expectations · inferences · inferencing · inferring · language deficits · learning disabilities · learning disabled · reading behaviors · receptive language · rigor · rigorous instruction · Sara Finegan · special education · standards · understanding

By Sara Finegan

         I post on a lot of message boards about learning disabilities and autism, and I also get a lot of emails from people who are following my blogs.  One of the most frequent topics is:  how a teacher told a parent that a student “doesn’t have reading comprehension.”

         Naturally, the parents want to know what to do. 

         The problem, of course, is that reading comprehension isn’t something you “HAVE” or “GET”, as in purchasing at a store or obtaining through a tutor.  You can’t put it on and take it off like a sweater, and you can’t keep it in the fridge until you need it.

         Reading comprehension is all about a reader’s relationship to text, and is based almost entirely on his or  her engagement and interaction with the piece being read.  It’s the relationship.  Relationship, relationship, relationship.

         Thinking of it in terms of a relationship leads me to the next step, which is to ask whether, when a friend discusses  a relationship that is flawed or failing, we simply let him or her  say “it’s not good” and leave it at that, or whether we start probing and asking questions to try to piece out what’s going on (or not going on).

         If you’re the kind of person who runs a demanding classroom, that’s exactly what you do.

What is this relationship with text made up of? 

         What behaviors does one see in a good relationship with text?  I’m ready to talk about a few, and will post more at another time.

         We’ll start with fiction and narrative.  (The relationship a reader has with informational, non-fiction text involves some different behaviors, so that will be the topic of another post.)  Research has shown that good readers of fiction do a number of different things when they read: 

• They visualize what they are reading about.  Like a movie in one’s head, a good reader sees what the text is describing.  This helps the reader enter into the world of the story, and leads to all sorts of other behaviors we like to see.
• They make inferences based on what they’re reading.  Good readers know that, in the best stories, the author shows you what’s happening instead of telling you directly, and they are able to infer ideas, feelings, and motives, not to mention facts, from what the author does with words.
• They ask questions as they read.  Lots of questions, knowing that they will find the answers in the story as it moves along.  This is done especially when they are trying to figure out what is going on, but also when they are thinking about things like character motives, and the conflict in the story.
• They use their background knowledge (personal, and from other stories they’ve read, as well as knowledge about the genre) to make predictions.  A good reader is going to know in a fantasy novel that there is going to be a struggle between good and evil, and that magical or fantastical creatures are probably going to play a role in the battle.  A good reader is going to use her personal knowledge of what it’s like to be the youngest in the family to predict how a baby sister may react during a family holiday. 
• They make connections between their own experiences and feelings and those of characters in the book.  They also make connections between world events and issues and people and events in the book.  And they make connections between stories, comparing one character in a book to a character in another book, etc.
• They check for understanding, pausing periodically to make sure they know what’s happening, and going back and re-reading if it’s unclear to them.

         It is our obligation as teachers to investigate, when a child clearly isn’t understanding what she or he is reading, what behaviors the child is engaging in, and what reading behaviors are weak.  It is based on this information that we can devise interventions that work, supports that help the child begin to make meaning from text.

         In a demanding classroom, the staff pays attention to each reader, keeping notes or logs about conferring sessions, guided reading interactions, and other data that will help them determine what skills to teach next. 

          In a demanding classroom, the teacher can, with pretty good specificity, explain to parents and colleagues what particular areas of need the child has with regard to his or her relationship to a book or story. 

          And in a demanding classroom, a report at a parent conference that “Johnny doesn’t understand what he’s reading” is followed immediately by  “and I have observed him and conferred with him, and I think here’s what’s going on and what our next steps should be.” 

For more of my posts on reading comprehension teaching strategies, see our other blog, Readers With Autism: http://readerswithautism.com .

autism · background knowledge · connections · demanding classroom · fiction · high expectations · inferences · inferencing · learning disabilities · learning disabled · narrative · predictions · questioning · questions · Reading · reading behaviors · reading comprehension · relationship · relationship with text · rigor · Sara Finegan · special education · standards · teaching strategies · understanding · visualization · visualize