Monday, February 22, 2016

Making Inferences
Guided Reading Strategy Groups
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Welcome to the first post of Smashing Strategies for Guided Reading, a monthly-link up between 8 teacher bloggers! Each of us will share a guided reading strategy, a teaching tip, and a freebie! Each month, you’ll have the chance to win a product relevant to each different strategy we blogged about! Time to build up those guided reading resources!  Make sure you check out all the great bloggers for fabulous tips and strategies!

Do you have trouble teaching your first, second or even third graders to infer?

It is a tough skill to teach, but one of the hardest things is finding material to teach it.



There are plenty of great books with inferences scattered throughout, but that makes it tough to target the skill.



What if you found a resource that had short passages with built inferences and was differentiated?  What if the short passages covered fiction and nonfiction material?  Wouldn’t that be nice?

LOOK NO FURTHER!
In this resource there are 14 Fiction Mini Passages with high interest topics for kids in first to third grade.  The inferences are built in.  The graphic organizers are differentiated in that they 1.) ask for the text that supports the inference (the inference is given 2.) ask for the inference (the text is given) and finally, 3,) a graphic organizer that is blank so that students can fill in both the inference and the text that supports it.
This way, teachers can scaffold their support.

(This resource is great for second grade, but works
well for above level first graders and
struggling third graders.)

I have found that if you give the student the inference, it is easier for them to find the text that supports it.  This is a working backward approach to inferring.  Because it is easier for them to find the text to support the inference, their confidence builds and then you can move on to the next step.... give them the text and have them give you the inference.  I know that it is every teacher's wish for their students to be able to independently read text and find the inferences that supports that text. So here is the plan to make that happen.  When you pull your inferring strategy groups and as you listen to your students read and tell you their thought process, you will be able to determine what will help them with this difficult skill.  Having everything in one neat package makes this so much easier!


https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Making-Inferences-14-Mini-Passages-With-Differentiated-Graphic-Organizers-1083744https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Making-Inferences-14-Mini-Passages-With-Differentiated-Graphic-Organizers-1083744
Blank organizer not shown.
Because the passages are so short, your strategy group will take less time with quality skills covered... instead of reading a book and waiting for a good inference to show up so that you can teach your students about it.


The same format is used for the Nonfiction Mini Passages.  In this resource, there are 11 mini passages.



https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nonfiction-Inferring-11-Mini-Passages-Influential-People-1096072https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nonfiction-Inferring-11-Mini-Passages-Influential-People-1096072

The nonfiction passage are also great for integrating social studies into your reading curriculum.

For convenience, these resources have been bundled with a $4 savings!



And..... Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, check out this St. Patrick's Day inferring resource!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day-Inferring-Mini-Passages-with-Built-in-Inferences-1141918

I hope that you found something useful in this post.  Anytime I can find something that will help my students master a skill, I am so happy! 
Teachers Helping Teachers!
It's an awesome thing!


Check out these Inferring FREEBIES in my store...
It's a TRY BEFORE YOU BUY!
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Freebie-Making-Inferences-Mini-Passages-with-Differentiated-Graphic-Organizers-1188647https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Freebie-Making-Inferences-with-Non-Fiction-Mini-Passages-1191757https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Freebie-St-Patricks-Day-Inferring-One-Mini-Passage-One-Multiple-Choice-1714223




1 comments:

Easy Teaching Tools said...

Thanks for sharing your post! I like the idea of working backwards!