District 79 students learn to read between the lines

Posted October 11, 2015 11:00 pm

From left, Matthew Casale, teacher Stacy Eifert and Mizael Cernas. Eifert had her students give each other clues about the contents of their bags to practice inferring. Courtesy of Fremont School District 79

Submitted by Fremont School District 79

What am I?

1) I am small.

2) You can shake me.

3) When you shake me sparkles fly.

4) There is water inside me.

5) Inside me there is an object.

These were the inference clues Nicole Tchorz gave her classmates to discover the treasure hidden inside her bag. It was all part of Fremont Intermediate School fourth-grade teacher Stacy Eifert's language arts activities to help students better understand the world of inference and how clues can help them reach their answer.

Inference in this Mundelein classroom is defined as reaching a conclusion on the basis of evidence and reasoning.

In Eifert's activity, Evan Simos correctly guessed the content of 19 out of 25 bags and Keira Ferrigan correctly guessed 20 out of 25 bags.

"Proficient readers understand that writers often tell more than what they actually say with words. It is important for students to learn to infer so that they can go deeper, below the surface details, to see what is really implied within the text. Only then will they fully comprehend the text they are reading," Eifert said.

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Fremont Intermediate School students Olivia Sharp and Gia Feather trade clues about the contents of their bags. Courtesy of Fremont School District 79

Nicole Killackey and Griffin Troha work on their inference project. Courtesy of Fremont School District 79

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