If someone came up to you and gave a big stretch and yawned really wide, what would you think?  You would think they were tired, right?  Well, you just made an inference!  You noticed details like stretching and yawning, and you "inferred" that they were tired.  That is the same thing that you should be doing when you are reading a book.  You might have heard of it being called "reading between the lines."  All that means is that the reader-YOU!-notices or guesses about something in the book that they author doesn't actually write, but you can guess with evidence or examples from the book.

• Inference means the act or process of reaching a conclusion about something from known facts or evidence.

I want you to play this inference game to get more familiar with making conclusions from evidence.  You don't need to worry about the stuff at the bottom, I just want you to play the game at the top of the page.  You'll click on a clue button, and try to see how few clues you need before you can guess the answer.  Have fun!



http://www.philtulga.com/Riddles.html


 

What sort of things can you infer from this comic?

Now that you are a little more comfortable making inferences, I want you to think about our book, Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express. 
Using evidence and clues from the book, I want you to answer these questions:

1. Why was it so important to Kate to save the men working for the railroad?
2. What time period could this book have taken place in?

The best thing about making inferences is that as long as you can show your evidence in the book, your answer can't be wrong!  Inferencing isn't about a right or wrong answer-it's about reading beyond what is written on the page.  If you think about our example of stretching and yawning at the beginning of this lesson, you'll realize that we infer and make conclusions all the time.  Authors do the same thing in books-they want you to see beyond the words on the page-to "read between the lines."