Predictions, Questions, & Inferences

While you're reading texts, making predictions, asking questions, and making inferences as you go will help you understand and learn from them.

looking into a crystal ball

Predictions are guesses about what will be or happen.

Before reading a text, LOOK at it. You can tell a lot from a passage's text features.

What type of text do you predict it will be? Will it be an informational article, a poem, a story, a play, or an argumentative essay?

What is the likely topic of the text? If it's an informational text, what will it be about? If it's a poem, what will be the subject? Will it be a funny or serious poem?

While reading a text, you will confirm or correct your predictions. Your predictions won't always be right, and that's okay! As you read on, you can make new predictions about what will come next, based on the passage's text structure and genre.

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boy with question mark

When you ask questions, you're looking for answers.

Before reading, ask questions that will help you predict the type of text and topic.

While reading an informational text, ask questions like—

What is the overall main idea?

What are the key ideas and supporting details?

How did the author organize the information? Why?

How do any text features help me understand the text?

While reading literary texts, ask questions like—

How do characters behave and interact? Why?

What are the main themes, or messages, in the text?

How do the historical and cultural settings affect the plot?

What figurative language does the author use?

While reading argumentative texts, ask questions like—

What is the author's claim?

What facts does the author use to support the argument?

Who is the intended audience, or reader?

After reading any text, you can still ask yourself questions like—

What did I learn from reading the passage?

How does what I learned relate to my own life?

What didn’t I understand? How can I make it clearer?

In a story, what were the specific plot elements?

Did characters undergo any changes? How?

In a poem, did the author use any sound devices?

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dog detective looking for clues

To infer is to make a guess based on evidence, or clues.

Making Inferences gives you more information than is actually written down.

While reading stories and poems, look for clues about a character’s or speaker’s thoughts, feelings, personalities, and even past experiences. You may find clues in how characters behave, talk, dress, and interact. Also look for clues in the author's use of imagery and other language.

While reading informational articles, look for clues about how ideas are related to each other. Does one thing cause another? Is something a possible solution to a problem? Are two ideas or topics in a text similar, or different? You may find clues in the author's choice of words and text structure.

Besides clues in the text, you can also use your own experiences and outside knowledge from other texts and sources to make inferences about what you are reading.

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REMEMBER: Be an active reader. You understand what you read better when you actively make predictions, ask questions, and make inferences as you read.

Common Core Standards

Predictions, Questions, & Inferences - Combined

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