Benjamin hears his mom coming up to his room. He quickly brushes the potato chips off his shirt and hides the package under his bed. Why is he doing that? Many of us can guess that it’s probably because he might get told off by his mom if he gets caught eating potato chips. We were never explicitly told that Benjamin’s mom doesn’t let him eat potato chips, so how did we come up with this conclusion? This is the skill of inferencing. It is when readers combine their own knowledge (parents generally advise against snacks) with what they have read in the text (Benjamin brushes the chips away and hides the package) to come up with a conclusion and understand something that is not explicitly said. 

Parents often wonder why their children can’t read between the lines when doing reading comprehension exercises? This is because they lack inference skills. Inferencing not only helps with academic performance, but also benefits communication with others. Implied meanings and sarcasm are often present in daily communication. Being able to understand something unspoken helps you communicate more effectively. 

Here are some tips on improving inference skills. 

• Read the news 

A key point of inferencing is making use of your own knowledge and then combining it with the text. For example, we can make the inference that someone is late for the train if we read about them running towards the train station. This cannot be done if we do not have the basic knowledge that people run when they’re late and that trains leave at a certain time without waiting for passengers. Therefore, the first thing parents can do to help children improve their inferencing skills is to increase their exposure to things happening around them. Reading the news is a great way to do that. Having a greater knowledge of what is happening helps children link what they read with information they already have more easily. 

• Make use of images

Some students might struggle with reading and writing. They may be hesitant to make inferences as they lack the language skills to do so. Moreover, some children might simply dislike reading blocks of text. Images can help boost students’ confidence as they can obtain information through visual prompts. Additionally, they encourage students to hone their inference skills. Show children a series of pictures or silent films and ask them to make connections between the pictures or the clips. What is the story about? What is going to happen next? Whilst making connections and predictions, children are naturally making use of inference skills as they synthesise information they have with information they get from the images.