Making Inferences with Pictures

Teaching students to understand how to make inferences can be so tricky! Even though kids naturally make inferences all day long (“It’s cloudy and grey outside, I better wear a jacket!”) when we use that academic term “making inferences” it’s like they inwardly panic and don’t know what to do.

So how can we help our students become more confident in their inferencing abilities? Pictures!!

Using pictures is a great way to help students understand what we mean when we say “make an inference” because it makes the connection between what they already know how to do and our academic language. The success kids have with making inferences from pictures also helps to build their confidence in their ability to infer.

I’ve been using pictures for inferences since the beginning of my teaching career, across a variety of grade levels spanning 2nd-8th, and it has been a hugely engaging and effective tool each year. I’ve changed things up here and there over the years to adapt to each group of students’ needs, but my basic method has remained the same.

I start by explaining the difference between observing and making an inference. I tell them observing is just stating what they see- it’s what is literally right there for us to point out. Making an inference is when we combine what we see with what we already know (background knowledge or schema) and make new meaning. I like to give them an example like the one I used in the first paragraph because it’s something everyone can relate to.

After a brief explanation we jump right in with our first photo!

I have my students make a list of everything they observe in the photo (I like to use whiteboards, but you can also have them record in their notebooks or on a recording sheet). After a minute or two, I start calling on students to share their observations and I write what they say on the whiteboard or on anchor chart paper. When we first start doing this, students will often share inferences, thinking they’re observations. For example, in a picture of a child dressed up as a clown with pumpkins, my students will say “I can observe this is a Halloween party.” This is a great opportunity to ask HOW they know it is a Halloween party and then ask if that is an observation or an inference.

After I’ve recorded all of their observations, I have my students erase their whiteboards and write what they can infer based on those observations. I like to give them the sentence starter “I can infer…” to encourage them to write their inferences out in sentences. When I call on students to share their inferences, I ask them to state them in a complete sentence, starting with “I can infer…”.

I spend about a week on inferencing from pictures before we move into making inferences from text. I do continue having them make inferences from pictures after we have started making text-based inferences, and I will bring the pictures back throughout the year to keep them building the skill.

If you want to start using pictures for making inferences, but don’t want to spend time looking for pictures to use, check out my Making Inferences With Pictures resource on TPT. It includes 30 pictures for your students to practice inferring, as well as 3 different student recording pages so you can use what works best for your students.