Lesson length30 min 45 min 60 min

Questions🔀 New questions

Print the plan for yourself; the student sheet prints on its own page after it.

English lesson plan · 5th grade (Year 6 in England) · 30 minutes

Making inferences

Reading Comprehension

CCSS RL.5.1CCSS RI.5.1England: Y5/6 Reading (inference)England: KS2 SATs ReadingEngland: 11+ English

Objective and success criteria

Students will: Making inferences.

I can answer questions on today's skill on my own, without help.
I can explain each step and say why it works.
I can check my answer and spot a mistake.

Before and after

Needs first: Predicting and simple inference

Leads to: Citing textual evidence; Tone and mood; Implicit meaning and inference

Materials: A short text or extract (one copy each), Highlighters, Question cards, Mini whiteboards, A short model text on the board, Printed student sheet (below).

Warm-up · 4 min

Quick retrieval from earlier learning (Predicting and simple inference). Students answer on mini whiteboards.
Show answers together and note who needs support in the main task.

Theo yawned and rubbed his eyes. His book slipped onto the floor. What is probably happening? (Theo is running a race. / Theo is very excited. / Theo is hungry. / Theo is falling asleep.) → Theo is falling asleep.Prompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.
Kim stepped up to the high board. Her knees shook as she looked down at the water. How does Kim feel? (nervous / angry / sleepy / bored) → nervousPrompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.
Omar's mum put a cake with seven candles on the table. Everyone began to sing. What is probably happening? (The family is moving house. / It is Omar's birthday. / It is a school day. / Omar is ill.) → It is Omar's birthday.Prompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.

Hook · 3 min

Read the first lines of a short text aloud and ask what students predict will happen and why.
Share the objective: Making inferences. Read the success criteria together.

I do: model it · 7 min

Work through the example out loud, saying why you do each step, not just what you do.
Example: The house was silent. Dust covered the furniture, and cobwebs hung from every corner. What can you infer about the house?
Step 1: An inference combines clues in the text with what you know.
Step 2: So the answer is: Nobody has lived there for a long time.
Answer: Nobody has lived there for a long time.
Pause after each step and ask a student to say what comes next.

We do: guided practice · 6 min

Do these together. Students try each step on whiteboards before you reveal it.
Use the hints as prompts rather than giving the answer.

The coach blew the whistle, and the players trudged off the field, heads down, while the other team cheered. What can you infer? (The players lost the match. / The match was cancelled. / The players are going to start playing. / The players won.) → The players lost the match.Prompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.
Bea's eyes lit up when she unwrapped the paints. She had been asking for them since the summer. What can you infer? (Bea dislikes painting. / Bea is pleased with her present. / Bea is disappointed. / Bea bought the paints herself.) → Bea is pleased with her present.Prompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.

You do: independent practice · 7 min

Students work on the student sheet. Circulate and check the first two answers of every student early.
Students who finish: write a question of their own for a partner, with the answer.

The 6 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

Exit ticket · 3 min

Two questions on their own. Sort answers into got it / nearly / not yet to plan the next lesson.

Mr Patel glanced at the clock for the third time and tapped his foot. The bus was already twenty minutes late. How is Mr Patel feeling? (sleepy / relaxed / impatient / delighted) → impatientPrompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.

Watch out for

Answering from memory or opinion instead of evidence in the text.
Copying a long quote without explaining what it shows.

Support and stretch

Support

Review first: Predicting and simple inference.
Use concrete materials: a short text or extract (one copy each).
Give the first step of each question, or a partly worked example to finish.
Pair with a confident partner for the guided practice.

Stretch

Move on to: Citing textual evidence; Tone and mood; Implicit meaning and inference.
Explain a common mistake in writing and how to fix it.
Write a word problem that uses today's skill, then solve a partner's.

Homework and more practice

Free online practice with hints and printable worksheets for this skill: eurekami.com/english/grade-5.

Free lesson plan from eurekami.com/lesson-plan-builder

eurekami

Making inferences

Name

Date

Score/ 6

The Long Wall

The Great Wall of China is not one wall at all. It is a network of walls, trenches and watchtowers built and rebuilt over more than two thousand years by different dynasties. If all its sections were laid end to end, they would stretch over 21,000 kilometres – more than half the distance around the Earth. The earliest walls were built from packed earth around the seventh century BCE, when rival Chinese states defended their borders from one another. In about 220 BCE, the first emperor of a united China, Qin Shi Huang, ordered many of these separate walls to be joined together to protect the north from raiding groups. The sections that most visitors see today are far younger. They were built during the Ming dynasty, between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ming builders used bricks and stone, which is why these sections have survived so well. Watchtowers were placed close enough together for soldiers to send signals using smoke by day and fire by night. The wall came at a terrible cost. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, prisoners and farmers were forced to work on it, often in freezing mountains or burning deserts. Many died, and stories and songs about their suffering are still told. Did the wall work? Historians disagree. It slowed down small raids and helped control trade and travel, but determined armies could still break through or simply go around it. Today, its greatest power may be as a symbol – of human effort, of history and of a nation's identity.

1
Question 1
Read "The Long Wall". Why were watchtowers placed close together?
- A. so signals could be seen from one tower to the next
- B. to make the wall look taller
- C. so soldiers could sleep in them
- D. to save bricks

My Grandmother's Hands

My grandmother's hands are brown and wrinkled, like a map of rivers that have been flowing for eighty years. When I was small, I used to trace the lines with my finger and ask her where each one went. "This one," she would say, pointing to a deep crease across her palm, "goes back to the farm where I grew up, where I picked cotton until my fingers bled." Then she would point to a thin white scar on her thumb. "And this one leads to the night I learned to cook for eight brothers and sisters." Her hands have kneaded thousands of loaves of bread. They have stitched every quilt in our house and plaited my hair before every first day of school. They once caught my baby brother when he slipped from the top of the slide, faster than anyone thought an old woman could move. These days her hands shake a little when she holds her teacup. Sometimes she drops a stitch and has to start a row again. But when she takes my hands in hers, they are still the strongest hands I know.

2
Question 2
Read "My Grandmother's Hands". What does the story about the slide show about Grandmother?
- A. She was quick and protective when it mattered.
- B. She was always slow.
- C. She did not like the baby.
- D. She was frightened of slides.

Message in a Bottle (a poem)

I am a bottle, empty and light, tossed from a boat on a bright summer night. No note inside me, no secret to tell, just plastic and air and a sea-salty smell. The ocean is patient, the ocean is wide; it rocks me and rolls me from tide to tide. A turtle swims near me and stares at my shine. I am not a jellyfish. Please, don't you dine! I'll drift for a lifetime, I'll drift for a few, I'll crumble to pieces too tiny for you. But somebody somewhere could carry me back, a hand on the beach and a bin in a sack. So here is my message, though no one wrote it: the sea keeps whatever we throw. Don't forget it.

3
Question 3
Read "Message in a Bottle (a poem)". Why does the bottle say, "I am not a jellyfish. Please, don't you dine!"?
- A. The bottle wants to be eaten.
- B. Turtles can mistake shiny plastic for jellyfish and eat it.
- C. Jellyfish live inside bottles.
- D. Turtles are afraid of bottles.

The Fennec Fox

The fennec fox is the smallest fox in the world. It weighs about as much as a bag of sugar. It lives in the Sahara Desert in North Africa, one of the hottest places on Earth. The first thing most people notice about the fennec fox is its enormous ears. They can be as long as 15 centimetres, which is huge for such a small animal. The ears do two important jobs. First, they let heat escape from the fox's body, helping it to stay cool. Second, they are so sensitive that the fox can hear insects moving under the sand. The fennec fox has other ways to survive in the desert, too. Thick fur on the bottoms of its feet protects it from the burning sand. During the hottest part of the day, it rests in a cool burrow underground. It comes out to hunt at night, when the air is cooler. Water is hard to find in the desert, but the fennec fox can go a long time without drinking. It gets most of the water it needs from the food it eats, such as insects, plants and small animals.

4
Question 4
Read "The Fennec Fox". Why does the fennec fox hunt at night?
- A. It sleeps in trees during the day.
- B. The air is cooler then.
- C. Its prey only comes out in the day.
- D. It cannot see in daylight.

The Vault at the Top of the World

On a frozen island in the Arctic Ocean, between Norway and the North Pole, a narrow concrete doorway sticks out of the side of a mountain. Behind it, a tunnel leads deep into the rock. This is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and it holds more than a million packets of seeds from almost every country on Earth. Why keep seeds in a mountain? Farmers all over the world depend on many different varieties of crops, such as types of rice that survive floods or kinds of wheat that resist disease. If a variety disappears because of war, natural disaster or simple accident, it may be lost for ever. The vault is a back-up copy, like saving a precious file in two places. The location was chosen with care. The vault is high enough above sea level to stay dry even if ice caps melt. Inside, the seeds are kept at about minus 18 degrees Celsius, cold enough to keep many of them alive for decades or even centuries. The surrounding rock is permanently frozen, so even if the power failed, the seeds would stay cold. The vault opened in 2008. In 2015, it was used for the first time: scientists who had lost access to their own seed bank during a war in Syria withdrew samples, grew new plants and later sent fresh seeds back to the vault. The back-up had worked. No one hopes the vault will be needed often. But like a fire extinguisher in a school corridor, it is reassuring to know it is there.

5
Question 5
Read "The Vault at the Top of the World". Why does the writer compare the vault to a fire extinguisher?
- A. Both are red and heavy.
- B. Both are kept ready for an emergency, and we hope not to need them often.
- C. Both are used every day.
- D. Both are found in schools.

6
Question 6
The house was silent. Dust covered the furniture, and cobwebs hung from every corner. What can you infer about the house?
- A. It was cleaned this morning.
- B. A party is happening.
- C. Nobody has lived there for a long time.
- D. It is brand new.

Free from eurekami.com

for the adult only

Answer key: Making inferences

1. A. so signals could be seen from one tower to the next
2. A. She was quick and protective when it mattered.
3. B. Turtles can mistake shiny plastic for jellyfish and eat it.
4. B. The air is cooler then.
5. B. Both are kept ready for an emergency, and we hope not to need them often.
6. C. Nobody has lived there for a long time.