Answering Inference Questions
English: Year 5 & 6 National Curriculum, topic 1.5.5
Answering Inference Questions
How to answer inference questions?
- First, you need to search for clues or evidence in the text.
- You then need to highlight the clues.
- Finally, you explain what the clue tells us.
Thoughts, feelings and motives
- You can often find clues about a character’s thoughts, feelings or motives.
- You will find clues about a character’s thoughts, feelings or motives in the author’s descriptions.
Where can you find clues?
- Look out for clues in the descriptions of the character's actions, words, appearance or body language.
Example: sentence
- The child jumped up and down, grinning from ear to ear.
- The author has not told us how the child feels.
Inference
- The child jumped up and down, grinning from ear to ear.
- We can infer the child is happy and excited from the clues we have highlighted.
Test yourself on Answering Inference Questions
What can you infer about the father's feelings in this sentence:
A tear rolled down the father's cheek when his son closed the door.What can you infer about Maya in this sentence?
Maya wrapped the blanket tightly around herself and shivered.What can you infer about the girl's thoughts in this sentence?
As the postman got closer to the door, the girl ran downstairs to meet him.What can you infer about how Toby was feeling in this sentence?
Toby immediately took his clothes off when he got out of the midday heat.