Workshop: infer, then prove it
Ākonga make an inference from their own text and point to the exact words that licensed it.
- Reading Workshop move: Inference tied to quoted text
- Evidence it produces: An inference with the phrase it rests on, quoted exactly
Route status: the learning intentions and mini-lesson scaffold are shared with the seminar route; the Do Now, activities, conferences, evidence and exit below are this route’s own. The difference is how ākonga work — their own chosen texts, individual evidence, and one-to-one conferencing — not which strategies are taught.
Lesson 4: Inferencing: Reading Between the Lines with Text Evidence
Building confident, active readers through Te Ao Māori perspectives, comprehension strategies, and rich Aotearoa texts.
🎯 Ngā Whāinga Akoranga | Learning Intentions
The inference equation: Text Clues + Schema / Prior Knowledge = Inference, and why implicit meaning requires evidence-based reasoning.
Make logical inferences about character motivations, mood, or unstated facts, and justify each inference using direct quote evidence.
⚡ Whakaoho | Do Now: Shown, never said (8 mins)
Open your own text to where you are up to. Find one thing the author has shown you but never actually said — a character’s feeling, a relationship, a coming problem. Write it down. Do not justify it yet; that is the lesson.
📖 Activity 1: Three inferences, quoted exactly (22 mins)
From today’s reading of your own text, build three inferences using the frame It says… I know… So I infer… — with one hard rule: the It says must be quoted exactly, in quotation marks, with a page number. An inference resting on a paraphrase is not yet evidence-tied.
For your strongest inference, add one line: could the same quoted words support a different inference? If yes, what extra evidence from your text tips it your way?
🪑 While they work: reading conferences (run through Activity 1 mins)
Confer one-to-one with four or five ākonga — the third question matters most; declining an unsupported inference is the skill. Keep each conference under four minutes and record one line per learner on your conference sheet: text, strategy seen, next move. Everyone else keeps working — the conference is a conversation about their book, not a test.
Conference questions for this lesson:
- Read me the exact words your inference rests on. What did you add from your own knowledge?
- Could those words support a different inference? What else in your book rules that out?
- Show me an inference you decided not to make because the evidence was too thin.
📝 Activity 2: Journal — inference organiser (15 mins)
Complete Section 4 of your Reading Journal: your three inferences in the organiser, quotes exact, pages named. Star the one you would defend in a conference and note the rival reading you ruled out.
🚪 Exit (5 mins)
Your starred inference and the exact quoted phrase it rests on. Book title and page on the slip.
🏫 Kaiako Planning & Pedagogy Notes
Curriculum alignment: Te Mātaiaho, English, Phase 3 (Years 7–8). This lesson builds comprehension, critical literacy and cultural connectedness through Aotearoa literature and pūrākau. The unit's one verified Te Mātaiaho anchor is recorded on the curriculum companion; no further statement is claimed for this lesson until one is verified.