1.

I think the essential role inferences play in reading becomes more obvious if you take a passage and ask students to jot in the margins the inferences they had to draw in order to make connections between sentences. They are often surprised to discover that even simple groups of sentences require inferences to be understood. "He was ironing his only clean shirt when the doorbell rang and he ran to answer it. While he was chatting with the mailman, he suddenly smelled smoke. By the time he picked up the iron, the shirt had a huge black hole in the front." Unless readers supply the inference that he left the iron on, these sentences aren't going to make sense.

2.

The standard question about inferences is "If the author didn't state the main idea, then how can you say my main idea is incorrect?" (This is also a standard response in literature classes, where students tell you that interpretation is all a matter of opinion with no one interpretation being better than another). I usually respond by saying what I say in more detail in chapter 7. Everyone has the right to an opinion, but not every opinion deserves the same degree of attention or respect. Opinions need to be based on some kind of evidence and so do inferences. If the author's words don't relate or connect to the main idea implied by the reader, then the reader's interpretation is the problem, not the author's words.

3.

One easy and fun way to help students grasp the nature of inferences is to ask them to explain the implication of quips or jokes. To get reasonably funny quips for this exercise online, you might try Quintessential Quips.

4.

For additional material on inferences, you can give your students online practice in the exercises for specific skills at Practice 4 and Practice 5. You can also download an additional quiz at Practice 3 . If you need more material at a slightly lower level, you can go to Reading for Results: Additional Material, Chapter 5, Quizzes 1, 2, and 3.