21 Interesting Activities To Assist Learners With Making Inferences

Learning inference is not the easiest for students. It’s a tricky area of reading but we need to encourage our students to stay engaged and come to a well-rounded understanding of the concept! Using the range of quizzes, worksheets, visual prompts, and flashcards below, you’ll be able to teach this topic in a much more versatile way and enable students to really grasp this cognitive comprehension skill.

1. Using the Text

For high school students, exploring the text with complementary questions is always a good revision point to get them to understand exactly what inference is. This easy-to-use worksheet is a great independent activity for them to brush up on this skill before moving on to more complex texts.

Learn More: K12 Reader

2. Interactive Inferring

Use Live Worksheets to allow students to read, look at the inference questions, and then input their answers into the interactive worksheets to develop their inference skills. Perfect for younger students who are equipped to tackle basic reading passages that are paired with fun graphics.

Learn More: Live Worksheets

3. What Does My Brain Know? 

This worksheet is useful when asking children to delve deeper into a text. They’ll come to understand why it’s so important to read between the lines when making inferences; combining what the text tells us and what our brain tells us before coming to a conclusion.

Learn More: TES Teaching Resources

4. Using Pictures

For younger students, inferencing is probably a tricky word to understand. However, if we replace it with the word ‘clue’ and depict it visually, it begins to develop this skill of inference. These flashcards are useful in introducing this concept. 

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5. Access for All Learners

This easy-to-use worksheet gives any student the opportunity to develop their inferencing skills in a simplistic way. With easy-to-read language and clear instructions, this sheet can be used with any text to deduce the information.

Learn More: The Autism Helper

6. Teach with Ted-Ed

Suitable for high schoolers, this psychology-based video allows students to process what inference is by analyzing a real-life scenario; prompting us to  ‘rethink our thinking’. Discussion questions are also included to prompt learners to think even further about the concept. 

Learn More: TED-Ed

7. Using Visual Prompts

These beautiful illustrations and accompanying questions make a great starter activity for any educator looking to develop inference skills. Students can verbally discuss their answers with a friend before sharing them with the class.

Learn More: The Inference Collection

8. Collaborative Quizzes

Use these competitive quizzes in the classroom to develop inference skills with a fun twist. Students can break into small groups or race against the teacher to work out the answers!

Learn More: Word Wall

9. Fun Flash Cards

These free printables provide a quick activity that would complement an inference lesson. Students read the small pockets of information and answer the quick-fire questions at the bottom of the card to develop their reading skills further.

Learn More: Mrs. Thompson’s Treasures

10. Interactive Inferences

This quiz-style game introduces children to clues or ‘inferences’ about a range of everyday items. They play a Jeopardy-style game where they guess the clues and work out the answers. 

Learn More: Play Factile

11. Clued Up

This interactive game is great fun for using clues to guess something while learning key inference skills! The premise here is that good readers make guesses based on what they have read.

Learn More: Phil and David Tulga

12. Who Am I?

Who Am I develops critical thinking and students have to come up with educated questions to help them guess a name that’s stuck to their forehead. This develops inference skills as students are learning more about reading between the lines and coming up with questions to help them reach an answer. 

Learn More: wikiHow

13. Create an Anchor Chart

Make an anchor chart for the classroom so that students can visualize what making inferences means. Better still, have the students create their own designs to tape to their desks!

Learn More: Pinterest

14. Use a Graphic Organizer

This worksheet is more simplistic for younger learners and can be printed on A3 or A2 paper to aid group work and discussion. Students scribble various answers within the bubbles which will allow them to organize information more freely before they discuss it.

Learn More: Have Fun Teaching

15. Fully Resourced Lesson

This lesson and accompanying worksheets will allow you to deliver a comprehensive inference lesson whilst the students have fun with exit tickets, and detective cards, and watch a short Pixar film! 

Learn More: The Lemonade Stand Teacher

16. Dramatic Arts

This lesson idea gives students the opportunity to participate in a drama activity whilst developing their inference skills. Using the theme of a tortoise finishing a race last, students read snippets of text to build up the tortoise’s journey. A great contextual lesson that will keep kids active and engaged! 

Learn More: U Texas Edu

17. Self-Assessments

For more independent students, give them a chance to self-assess their inference knowledge by completing a short revision test online. It also provides an answer key to check their responses. 

Learn More: BBC Bitesize

18. Show Not Tell

To develop inferential thinking, explain to students that certain authors use a show not tell method; the basis of how we infer information. Students will come to understand that an author shows us things such as senses and thoughts without explicitly writing them.

Learn More: Bing Images

19. Savvy Social Media

Students are exposed to social media on a daily basis. They will look at 3 different social media profiles and make judgments to infer information about the person’s lifestyle. 

Learn More: Presto Plans

20. Guided Reading

Using this worksheet will allow students to become more independent when searching for clues that help them to deduce information about the story. It’s easy to print and give to each learner to record notes about the reading passage. 

Learn More: Model Teaching

21. Watch this Blog

This excellent vlog provides lots of useful information to use within inference activities. The website also contains lots of free texts for quick downloads; making lesson planning easy! 

Learn More: WAGOLL Teaching