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Inferencing | Speech Therapy Goals and Activities
How can we teach inferencing in speech therapy?
What goals should we write for inferencing?
An inference is when you use clues present (in text or in real life) along with your background knowledge to make a guess about something that’s not explicitly known.
On this page, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about teaching inferencing skills to children and teens. We’ll provide you with sample IEP goals for inferencing as well as therapy activities to help teach it.
Middle/High School Language Bundle
Vocabulary, Syntax, and Literacy for Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers (Includes Inferencing)
$45 ~ Buy Now!Inferencing Goals for Speech Therapy:
There are two main ways that we can work on inferencing in speech therapy: in text and in social contexts. Here are two sample inferencing goals for speech therapy:
In Text:
By the end of the reporting period, after reading a text, ______________________ will make an appropriate inference from the text and refer to details and examples in the text when explaining how he/she drew that inference on four of five observed opportunities.
Social Inferencing:
By the end of the reporting period, after reading, watching, or hearing a description of a social scenario (some including sarcasm), ______________________ will use social cues plus background information to make an appropriate inference of what has happened or is happening on four of five observed opportunities.
Inferencing Activities for Speech Therapy
We can work on inferencing skills with children and teens through speech therapy activities. We start by simply explaining to them what an inference is and then providing them with activities that allow them to practice and demonstrate the skill in progressively harder contexts.
What is an Inference?
Clues from Text or Pictures + Background Knowledge = Assumption of what has happened or what is happening
Let me give you an example. You walk up to the bathroom and see this:
From this text, you gather the clue that someone has placed an “out of order” sign on the bathroom door. You combine this with your background knowledge that “out of order” means something typically isn’t working and the main working part of a bathroom is the toilet. Using these two parts, you can reasonably assume that the toilet is not working and they therefore do not want anyone to use it. That, my friend, is an inference.
What Do We Use Inferences For?
Inferences come in handy frequently throughout our day. Not only do we make inferences about text that we are reading, we also using inferences to “read” our environment and make inferences about what’s going on around us. Also, we use inferences to “read” other people and try to make assumptions on what they’re thinking or feeling so we can adjust our actions accordingly.
Inference Vs. Prediction
Keep in mind that inferences are made about past events or events that are currently happening. If you make an assumption or guess on what is about to happen (something in the future), you’re actually making a prediction, not an inference.
Inferencing Step One: Making Inferences from Pictures
Since it is typically easier to make an inference from a picture than from a text, we’ll start with that. Have the child look at a picture. You can find pictures in books that are good for inferencing or download the worksheets from our Curriculum.
If you are using your own pictures, try to take pictures of things that are out of place or pictures that clearly define an event that just happened.
How to Teach It:
Take each picture and show it to the child. Ask the child to guess what is going on in the picture or what happened before the picture was taken. Then, talk to the child about what an inference is. You can say something like “an inference is when we find clues in the picture and combine them with our own background knowledge to make an assumption about what is happening or what just happened”.
Then, show the child the picture again and talk through the inference that was made. For example, in the bathroom example above, you would explain to the child that the inference is that the toilet is broken. You figured that out because you used the clues from the picture (out of order sign) and combined that with your background knowledge that “out of order” means broken and the toilet is the main working part of the bathroom.
Walk the child through several examples like that until the child can identify the two pieces that contribute to the inference on his or her own.
Inferencing Step Two: Making Inferences from Text and Pictures Combined
Since it can be quite the jump from making inferences about pictures to inferences about text only, I like to include an in between step where they make inferences about text and pictures combined. You can use children’s books that have a simple story along with pictures or something like a comic strip that uses text within a picture. Comic strips (like from your Sunday Funnies section of the newspaper) can be very good because they rely heavily on inferences to make the strips funny.
Take this comic strip for example:
Observations/Clues: The pets are running around like crazy. The owner says he wished he had the receipt for the pets.
Background Knowledge: You need the receipt when you return something that you don’t want anymore.
Inference: The owner wishes he could take back his pets sometimes.
How To Teach It:
For this step, read the text and look at the pictures with the child. Then, have them make an inference and back it up by telling you what in the text or pictures they used as clues/observations and what background knowledge they had to add to come up with their assumption.
Inferencing Step Three: Making Inferences about Text
Finally! We’ve made it to the actual skill that kids are expected to use in school. These children must read a grade level text (literature and informational) and then make inferences based on the information provided. The child you’re working with may not be ready for something on grade level yet so you may have to adapt this skill down at first. Start with steps one and two from this tutorial before you go into this step because you want them to have a good working knowledge of what an inference is and how to come up with one.
How to Teach It:
Show the child a few sentences that are written down that could lead to an inference. Ask the child to read the text and then make an inference about what just happened or what is currently happening. Once the child has made his inference, have him circle or underline the parts of the sentence that he used for clues/observations and then have him write down what background knowledge he added to come up with his inference.
For example, here is the sentence:
“Johnny walked into the room and saw a birthday cake with his name on it, presents, and all of his friends standing around the table”.
Inference: It is Johnny’s birthday.
Observations/Clues:
“Johnny walked into the room and saw a birthday cake with his name on it, presents, and all of his friends standing around the table”.
Background Knowledge: You get presents and a birthday cake with your name on it when it’s your birthday.
Once you have done several examples like this and the child is able to come up with an inference and tell you how he got there, you’re ready to gradually increase the difficulty level of the text. Work your way up to being able to do this in the readings or texts that the child has been assigned for his classes. Provide support for the child by walking him through the steps of picking out the clues and adding background knowledge as needed.
Inferencing Step Four: Using Inferences for Social Skills
If you are working with a child who purely needs to use inferencing for reading activities, you can stop here. However, many children with social problems also need help with making inferences in social situations. If a child doesn’t understand how to “read” a situation to figure out how to act or “read” a person’s body language to get a good idea of what’s going on, they may need some inferencing help.
Children who have trouble with this skill are often having difficulty with both parts of the formula. Let’s look at an example.
Johnny starts talking to Fred about trains. Johnny loves trains so he tells Fred everything that he knows about trains. He has been talking about trains for 5 minutes. Fred starts to look at his watch and tap his foot. He starts looking around and he stops responding to what Johnny is saying. Johnny keeps talking anyway.
Know anyone like that?
Well, poor Johnny has a few problems here. Chances are, he doesn’t notice that Fred looks disinterested. He hasn’t noticed him looking at his watch or tapping his foot. Furthermore, Johnny doesn’t even know that those signs typically mean that someone is not interested. So even if Johnny had noticed Fred looking around, he doesn’t have the background knowledge to tell him that when someone starts looking around, they aren’t interested in what you’re saying.
How to Teach It:
In order to teach making inferences for social skills, you need to teach the child not only to start paying attention and making observations, but also to know what to look for. You must give the child the background knowledge necessary to know what nonverbal behaviors mean.
Start by choosing one social skill that the child has trouble with, like knowing when someone is no longer interested in what he has to say. Teach the child what to look for (what observations or clues to look for) and then teach him what those clues mean. Role play situations where you demonstrate the clues for the child and the child has to recognize them. Then, you’ll also need to teach the child what to do when he notices those signs, like ask the other person a question about himself or herself.
Practice those situations and then take the child to a situation where those kinds of things may happen and signal him to pay attention to the clues when you see them arise. You can also video tape interactions and play them back to the child to help him see the clues when they arise.
Listen to the Podcast Version of this Info:
A Structured Curriculum for Teaching Inferencing and Other Higher Language Skills
Looking for a pre-made program that will teach inferencing skills and other higher language skills?
Our Middle School / High School Language Curriculum Bundle targets inferencing along with a ton of other skills that our clients need for effective communication:
Middle/High School Language Bundle
Vocabulary, Syntax, and Literacy for Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers
$45 ~ Buy Now!
About the Author: Carrie Clark, MA CCC-SLP
Hi, I’m Carrie! I’m a speech-language pathologist from Columbia, Missouri, USA. I’ve worked with children and teenagers of all ages in schools, preschools, and even my own private practice. I love digging through the research on speech and language topics and breaking it down into step-by-step plans for my followers.
Fun Fact: I play the cello. I took lessons for cello and piano for most of my childhood, though I’m way better at cello than I ever got a piano. I also taught myself guitar as an adult. I have a super fun bright blue electric guitar that I get out every once in a while and play around on. And then I curse the fact that since I don’t play consistently, I don’t have my callouses built up.
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