Teaching About Inferences

In the classroom, inferencing is a valuable reading strategy. Inferencing happens when a reader combines clues from a text with information from their own background knowledge. From our inferences, we draw conclusions. For instance, a good reader infers the meaning of a word from context clues. Inferences happen frequently, and it isn’t limited to the classroom.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, better known as FEMA, makes inferences all the time about safety level and the extent of damage in natural disaster areas. They even use the Waffle House for data.

The Wall Street Journal has reported on the “Waffle House Index” during Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Isaac.  The Waffle House, a chain with 1,600 restaurants ranging from the mid-Atlantic to Florida and the Gulf Coast, serves as a support system for communities affected by storms. The restaurants strive to resume serving hot meals to their customers as soon as possible. By examining the status of Waffle Houses across the country, FEMA is able to infer the level of safety in the area. If the Waffle House Index status is green, the restaurant is serving a full menu and has full power. If yellow, the menu is limited and the restaurant is using a power generator. Red signals that the restaurant is closed. If the status is red, FEMA can infer that there is severe damage to that area, and that aid is needed.

Using The Waffle House as inspiration, have your students brainstorm other wacky ways we make inferences day-to-day. Here are some some examples:

– I know I should dress warm today because when I looked out the window, everyone is wearing jackets.
– I know I’m in trouble because my parents called me by my middle name.
– I know we have a test today because everyone looks nervous.
– I know it’s going to rain because my knees hurt.

What other inferences do we make in our daily lives? What are ways that making inferences can help us? In what ways can making inferences be dangerous? You can also use the Waffle House Index story to lead your students in a discussion of causation vs correlation. In the example above, the storms cause the Waffle House restaurants to close, not the other way around. However, some cause and effect relationships are not as clear, as this New York Times article on laughing and feeling good explains.