Chapter 5: Learning to Make an Inference

In Chapter 5 Beers says, "You can't teach someone how to make an inference. It's inferential. It's just something you can or can't do." I like this quote for two reasons. First, as a future Intervention Specialist, it challenges me because my job is to find ways to adapt and modify curriculum so my students can learn it. It might be difficult to teach a student with a learning disability, or any student for that matter, how to make an inference, but I believe that it can be done. Second, this quote made me stop to try and map out how I would go about teaching a student to make an inference. When you think about it, making an inference seems like it would be easy, but for someone who struggles to comprehend a text, I think I can see how it would be difficult for them to do so without explicit instruction. The chapters I have read prior to this point seem to highlight the importance of explicit instruction in order to help transform dependent readers into independent readers. This made me think that modeling how to make an inference would be the best plan of attack to help struggling readers understand this concept; however, I had great difficulty figuring out how I would explain an inference until I came across Beers' "Types of Inferences" list. As I read through the list, it made perfect sense. I had never realized that while I was making inferences about all of the texts I have read over the years that I was doing so many different things. It was enlightening to realize how many different forms an inference can take on, but it also helped me to understand even more why it would be hard for struggling readers to grasp this concept on their own. Making an inference doesn't have one concrete form. It takes on many, many forms. But, now that I understand these forms, I am better equipped to help the dependent readers in my future.