Inferring With Poetry

In my class we have been working on inferring for a couple weeks.  This week we had a great time making inferences using poetry.  The class LOVED it...and so did I! 

I didn't come up with this awesome idea....I got it from Debbie Miller's book, Reading With Meaning.

I started the lesson by reading a few poems from this book:

Beast Feast

I love this book!  I use it throughout the year to teach different reading concepts...inferring is one of them.  This book has short poems about animals.  I read the poems to the class, but leave out the name of the animal and keep the picture of the animal hidden.  They had to talk with a partner to infer what animal the poem was about.  They also had to tell me what evidence they heard in the poem to support their inference.  We had a GREAT time with this!

 

 

Then, we moved on to our inferring with poetry page.  I demonstrated how to use the poem to underline clues and write possible guesses.  Then, the students were given their own poem to make inferences on their own.  This was also a big hit!

 

Here is the poem we practiced with.  (I wrote my examples for you to see.)

 

Inferring with Poetry: Dolphin

 

 

 

Here are several other poems to infer with. 

 

Inferring Poems

 

I also made one poem with a word bank to help out my inclusion students. 

 Here is the modified version:

 

Inferring Poem: Modified

 

 

 

Here are a few other inferring things we used in class and added to our reader's notebooks:

 

Inferring Thinking Stems

 

 

How I Infer

 

These are the words to the inferencing song by Tanny McGreggor.

Inferring Song