Inferencing is probably one of the most difficult comprehension skills to teach. Students struggle to make inferences about graphic sources and vocabulary in expository text. This week's menu gave several opportunities to tackle inferences from different perspectives.
First, students were paired by readiness to read and respond to expository texts about the Titanic. They would read and identify the main idea, text structure and two mystery words based on the context clues. With every section completed, they received a code to form the word: Salvavidas. Although some students didn't finish on time, all of them were engaged and had meaningful discussion about their text. They struggled with the vocabulary questions, maybe the ones chosen were too difficult and led to unnecessary frustration. We need to work more in context clues and word structures.
The next day, we used Edpuzzle to answer some inferencing questions based on photos. Then, students selected photos and created their own inferencing questions to display. The results were amazing, all students were successful and were able to create the questions. They felt excited when their peers answered the questions they've made.
At the same time, every day I modeled a Mystery Bag. I would reveal clues (evidence) like the genre, text structure, an object that was important or a character description, and students had to name the book or the character. Students took it to heart to make their Mystery Bags, they drew, brought objects and were super excited to reveal their work. I would definitively try to do this activity again, maybe with more text evidence than objects. This was a good first approach.
