8th grade · English Language Arts · Unit 7 of 12
Predict, infer and summarize
Making and checking predictions, choosing a strategy when reading gets tricky, drawing local and global inferences from clues, and summarizing the main ideas of complex texts.
Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards benchmark: 8.1.2.1; 8.1.4.2 · monitoring understanding while reading, and summarizing central ideas
Children can open this short lesson before they practice.
Example: You stop and say, “The author is trying to teach us about honesty.” What are you making? This is about the message of the whole story. An inference about the whole text is global. Answer: a global inference
In the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards, this is unit 7 of 12 in 8th grade English Language Arts, after Forms, Patterns & Visuals and before Digital Citizens.
Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
What is the best prediction about what happens next?
Stalls glowed under strings of lanterns, and the air smelled of grilled corn and sweet dough. Ana held her brother's hand tightly as the crowd pushed past.
“Stay close,” she said. A moment later, the lights flickered, and the music stopped.
The lights go out or something unexpected happens, and Ana must keep her brother close.
Hint: Use the clues at the end of the passage.
Question 2
Which sentence is an inference?
Because Maya packed a raincoat, she must expect wet weather.
Hint: An inference uses clues in the text to work out something that is not stated.
Question 3
What can the reader conclude?
In early spring, when nights are still freezing but days are warm, sap begins to rise in maple trees. Producers tap the trees and collect the clear, watery sap in buckets or tubing.
It takes about forty liters of sap to make just one liter of syrup, so the sap is boiled for hours until most of the water has evaporated. Once the syrup is thick and golden, it is filtered and bottled.
Making syrup takes a lot of sap for a small amount of syrup.
Hint: Compare the forty liters of sap to the one liter of syrup.
Question 4
You reach a word you do not know in a science article. Which strategy should you try first?
reread the sentence for context clues, then check the glossary
Hint: Use the text first, then a reference.
Question 5
Which detail best shows Ana is careful?
Stalls glowed under strings of lanterns, and the air smelled of grilled corn and sweet dough. Ana held her brother's hand tightly as the crowd pushed past.
“Stay close,” she said. A moment later, the lights flickered, and the music stopped.
She held her brother's hand tightly.
Hint: Look for an action that shows she wants to keep him safe.
Question 6
Which is the best summary of the passage?
In early spring, when nights are still freezing but days are warm, sap begins to rise in maple trees. Producers tap the trees and collect the clear, watery sap in buckets or tubing.
It takes about forty liters of sap to make just one liter of syrup, so the sap is boiled for hours until most of the water has evaporated. Once the syrup is thick and golden, it is filtered and bottled.
Maple syrup is made by collecting sap in spring and boiling it until most of the water is gone.
Hint: A summary gives the main ideas in a few sentences.