Simply Skilled in Second: Inferencing at its BEST..and a freebie!

I LOVE teaching my little kiddos how to make inferences. It is not an easy skill to master, but with the right materials they tend to GRAB HOLD OF IT...and completely get it! And...that's exactly what happened this week! Can I get a Woot-Woot! We use Reading Street as our reading series and while I enjoy most parts of it, I find that it is lacking in some areas. Which then leads me on a QUEST to find the PERFECT resource to teach the skills that my kiddos need to learn. So I head over to my trusty GO TO site...Teachers Pay Teachers! I knew that I was looking for an easy way to attack inferencing so I figured I would use task cards with my reading groups to work on this skill...which of course...led me to Rachel Lynette's store! She has task cards for EVERYTHING...and I mean EVERYTHING! I just adore them! I purchased these....

Can you say LOVE! Yep....I adore these task cards. I actually purchased the Task Cards for Grades 3-5 because most of my students are reading on a high third grade reading level. However, I am also going to purchase Rachel's Grade 1-2 Inferencing Task Cards for my Literacy Centers so my students can continue to practice this skill independently. These task cards worked wonders for my students. I was amazing at their inferencing skills and their ability to "debate" with me and each other about what the inference should be. Some of their arguments were quite good when their peers disagreed with them, which made for a great discussion. I printed the task cards out in black and white on my copy machine and I actually reduced their size {I think to about 80%} because I wanted them to be able to write their inference and be able to look back at the clues to help them.

I decided to take these inferencing task cards and make them into an interactive notebooking activity. I made small "matchbook fold-its" and glued on the task cards to each matchbook and printed out a class set. I cut them out really quickly with my paper cutter and had a wonderful set of Inferencing Interactive Notebook fold-its :) Check it out....

My students had to write what their inference was and support their idea with two clues from the text. While they were waiting for their friends to finish, they drew a picture to support their inference.

They came out SOOOOOO GREAT and my kiddos have a really strong grasp on making inferences now! I am actually going to pick up a few more sets of Rachel's task cards to attack some of our other comprehension skills that are coming up. If you are interested in doing something like this with Rachel's task cards, here is a FREEBIE for you if you feel like putting them in your students notebooks! Just click the image below to download your "Matchbook Flip-Its!"