The problem with inference on STAAR might not be inference.

We are reading Understanding and Teaching Reading Comprehension. 

It's taking me some serious time to diffuse the text and the implications for instruction. And chapter 4 is a doozy.

Here's what I'm learning:
The Importance of Inferences: An Overview: 

We have to stop teaching inference as a predictive, cognitive act and stop there with probable answers. We must teach thinkers to question, test, and challenge their predictions with further data and continued reading that makes the links between sentences cohere both locally and globally. 

You see, we are asking kids to use text evidence to support their answers - but we are forgetting to teach them the ways that text evidence functions. Like so many things - we are telling kids to infer and to cite text evidence, but neglecting to tell them how. In the case of inferences, it's even worse. We are only teaching a part of what it really involves as well as teaching elaborative inferences that really don't work. 

Telling the Difference between Necessary and Elaborative inferences. Quiz yourseslf here. 

 Predictive and elaborative inferences are dangerous because they often get the reader thinking about stuff that isn't connected with the author's purpose or the gist of the story. What we should be doing instead.

 The kinds of questions we need to ask to tell if kids can make an inference, what kinds, or if there is another problem. 

Quiz yourself. Can you ask the different types of inference questions for this text?

QAR Solution

The Role of Memory, Knowledge, and Expectations

Teaching additive, redactive, and constrained inference.

More on Memory Struggles
More on Background and Vocab
A tiny bit More on Expectations 

3 Easy ways to Improve Inference Making