Friday, January 11, 2013

Making inferences (or drawing conclusions?)

Okay, I mentioned earlier in the week that my 4th and 5th graders are working on drawing conclusions/making inferences. I feel like as a reading specialist I should know the difference, or IS there a difference? I feel like I was taught there was, but I was looking it up to see and couldn't find anything. Can anybody help me out?

Anyway, I created my Case of the Secret Admirer earlier in the week and completed it with a group of 4th graders yesterday. They loved it, and I was so proud that I at least kind of tripped them up (they had it narrowed down to two and were split on which was the right person). I'm always worried that I'll make something too hard or too easy, but this seemed to be just right!

Today I decided to make a "scoot". One of my co-workers in fourth grade last year introduced me to these, and I LOVE them! If you're not familiar with the idea, you place cards on each student's desk and number them. Then students go from desk to desk answering each card on a sheet of paper. It's great because they're doing a lot of work, but they enjoy it because they're constantly moving and it feels more like a game. I took a lot of them for grades when I taught 4th grade.

This one gives a short paragraph with clues, and then it asks a question. Students have to use the clues to determine the answer and write a short response on the final sheet.

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I used this today with my 5th grade class that I push in to on Fridays, and they had a lot of fun! Some of the cards are pretty easy, and then others tend to stump them more. We talked about how some of the cards were harder because they lacked the background knowledge, which helped pull in the fact that you draw conclusions/make inferences based on what you read AND what you already know (there's the schema word again! I swear my kids are going to start calling me "schema" with how much I bring it up.). For one of the cards, I encouraged them to use a map to help them build schema and figure out what the question was talking about.

In other news, I'm SO glad it's Friday! I love my kids, but this first FULL week back after the break is always tough. I will feel much more prepared next week. Oh, and I already have my post scheduled for tomorrow. Keep your eyes open for Jessica Stanford's product swap. There's always a ton of great items to learn about!

2 comments:

  1. we've had this same discussion at my school, no one can decide if there is a difference and to try to explain it to 2nd graders--forget it! I use them interchangeably sometimes so they don't think they should be trying to do something completely different!

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  2. we've had this same discussion at my school, no one can decide if there is a difference and to try to explain it to 2nd graders--forget it! I use them interchangeably sometimes so they don't think they should be trying to do something completely different!

    ReplyDelete