Lesson length30 min 45 min 60 min

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English lesson plan · 5th grade (Year 6 in England) · 45 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 · 5 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.

Omar's mum put a cake with seven candles on the table. Everyone began to sing. What is probably happening? (Omar is ill. / It is a school day. / It is Omar's birthday. / The family is moving house.) → It is Omar's birthday.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? (bored / angry / sleepy / nervous) → nervousPrompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.
Jada looked at the dark clouds. She grabbed her umbrella before leaving. Why did Jada take her umbrella? (It was sunny. / She thought it would rain. / She was going swimming. / She lost her hat.) → She thought it would rain.Prompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.

Hook · 5 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 · 10 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 · 10 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 players won. / The match was cancelled. / The players are going to start playing.) → The players lost the match.Prompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.
Tariq stared at his test paper, then crumpled it up and pushed it to the bottom of his bag before his dad could see. What can you infer about the test? (Tariq did not do well. / Tariq got full marks. / The test was cancelled. / Tariq's dad wrote the test.) → Tariq did not do well.Prompt: The answer is not written word for word. Look for clues.

You do: independent practice · 10 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 8 questions are on the student sheet below, with answers in the key.

Exit ticket · 5 min

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

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

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Making inferences

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The Mapmaker's Apprentice

Ines had worked in Master Corvo's shop for three years, and in all that time he had never let her draw a single line on a real map. She ground his inks, stretched his parchment and swept up the shavings from his quills. When she asked why she could not draw, he only said, "A mapmaker must first learn to see." So Ines watched. She watched sailors come in, sunburnt and impatient, to buy charts of the southern coast. She watched merchants argue over which mountain pass was fastest. Most of all, she watched Master Corvo, who spent far longer listening to travellers than he did holding his pen. One winter morning, a fisherman stumbled into the shop, soaked and shaking. A storm had pushed his boat far north, past the edge of every chart in the city. He had found a narrow channel between two islands that no map showed, and it had saved his life. Master Corvo was in bed with a fever. The fisherman was leaving on the evening tide. Ines hesitated only for a moment. Then she sat the fisherman by the fire and asked him questions — not just where the channel was, but how the water changed colour near the rocks, where the gulls gathered, how long it took to row from one island to the other. She wrote down every answer. Only when she had heard everything did she pick up a pen. When Master Corvo recovered, she laid the new chart in front of him. He studied it for a long time without speaking. Then he took his own pen, signed his name in the corner, and beneath it, for the first time, he wrote hers.

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Question 1
Read "The Mapmaker's Apprentice". Why did Ines have to act quickly?
- A. Merchants were waiting for the map.
- B. The fisherman was leaving that evening and Master Corvo was ill.
- C. A storm was coming to the city.
- D. The shop was about to close forever.

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.

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Question 2
Read "Message in a Bottle (a poem)". Why does the bottle say, "I am not a jellyfish. Please, don't you dine!"?
- A. Jellyfish live inside bottles.
- B. Turtles can mistake shiny plastic for jellyfish and eat it.
- C. The bottle wants to be eaten.
- D. Turtles are afraid of bottles.

Should Primary Schools Ban Homework?

Every evening, in homes across the country, the same battle takes place: tired children, frustrated parents and a worksheet that nobody wants to finish. It is time for primary schools to ban homework. The most important reason is that, for young children, the evidence for homework is weak. Several large reviews of research have found that homework has little measurable effect on the test results of pupils under eleven. Older students may benefit, but for younger children, the hours spent on worksheets do not seem to pay off. Second, children need time to play, rest and be with their families. Play is not a waste of time; it builds creativity, problem-solving and friendships. A child who has spent six hours concentrating at school deserves an evening to explore, read for pleasure or simply be bored – which is when imagination often kicks in. Some people argue that homework teaches responsibility. This is a fair point. However, children can learn responsibility in many other ways: feeding a pet, helping to cook dinner or practising an instrument they have chosen themselves. Finally, homework can be unfair. Some children have parents who can help them every night and a quiet desk to work at. Others share a small space with siblings or have parents who work late. Homework can widen the gap between these children instead of closing it. Schools should replace homework with something simple: read every day, for fun. That is one habit worth taking home.

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Question 3
Read "Should Primary Schools Ban Homework?". What is the writer's tone?
- A. angry and insulting
- B. uncertain and confused
- C. humorous and silly
- D. confident and reasonable

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.

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Question 4
Read "My Grandmother's Hands". What does the story about the slide show about Grandmother?
- A. She was frightened of slides.
- B. She was quick and protective when it mattered.
- C. She did not like the baby.
- D. She was always slow.

How to Build a Junk Robot

Do you have a pile of empty boxes and bottle tops? Instead of throwing them away, turn them into a robot! This project takes about an hour. You will need: one cereal box, one smaller box (such as a toothpaste box), four cardboard tubes, bottle tops, glue, scissors and some tape. Step 1: Ask an adult to help you cut a hole in the top of the cereal box. This will be the robot's body. Step 2: Glue the smaller box on top of the body to make the head. Hold it in place for a minute while the glue sets. Step 3: Tape two cardboard tubes to the sides of the body for arms and two to the bottom for legs. Step 4: Glue bottle tops onto the head for eyes and onto the body for buttons and dials. Step 5: Leave your robot to dry overnight before you play with it. Top tip: Give your robot a name and write it on a label. Robots with names are much more fun!

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Question 5
Read "How to Build a Junk Robot". Why should you ask an adult to help with Step 1?
- A. Adults choose the robot's name.
- B. Adults are better at gluing.
- C. The box is too heavy.
- D. Cutting with scissors can be tricky or unsafe.

The Attic

The attic door had been painted shut for as long as Daniel could remember. His mother said there was nothing up there but dust and old suitcases. So when the decorators scraped away the paint on the first Saturday of the summer holidays, Daniel was the first one up the narrow stairs. The air was thick and warm and smelt of mothballs. Thin blades of light slid through gaps in the roof tiles and lay across the floorboards like fallen swords. In the far corner, beneath a sheet greyed with age, something waited. Daniel crossed the room slowly. Each board groaned beneath him as if complaining about being woken. He reached out, hesitated, then pulled the sheet away in one quick movement. It was a desk – small, battered, and covered in carvings. Initials. Dates. A crooked drawing of a sailing boat. And there, in the corner, carved more deeply than all the rest, were three letters he knew better than his own name: D.A.M. Daniel Adebayo Mensah. His grandfather. The grandfather who had died two years before Daniel was born, and whom his mother never spoke about. He ran his fingers over the letters. Downstairs, someone switched on a radio, and a burst of music floated up through the floor. Daniel did not move. For the first time, the silence in the attic did not feel empty. It felt like someone waiting to tell him a story.

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Question 6
Read "The Attic". What can we infer about Daniel's mother's feelings towards his grandfather?
- A. She hid the desk because it was valuable.
- B. The subject is painful or difficult for her.
- C. She is excited to talk about him.
- D. She never met him.

The Moon's Night Walk (a poem)

The moon puts on her silver coat and tiptoes up the sky. She hums a tune to sleepy owls and winks at clouds nearby. She paints the rooftops pearly white, she lights the cat's way home, she peeps into the children's rooms to check they're not alone. She counts the stars like sleeping sheep, she sings the sea to rest, she hangs a lantern on the hill for travellers in the west. And when the sun yawns in the east and stretches out his rays, the moon slips off her silver coat and hides away for days. But look up on a quiet night when all the town's asleep: she's tiptoeing across the sky with promises to keep.

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Question 7
Read "The Moon's Night Walk (a poem)". What is happening in the fourth verse?
- A. The moon is getting brighter.
- B. A storm is starting.
- C. Morning is coming and the moon is disappearing.
- D. The children are waking the moon.

Inside a Volcano

Deep beneath our feet, the Earth is extremely hot – hot enough to melt rock. This melted rock is called magma. Because magma is lighter than the solid rock around it, it slowly rises upward. Sometimes it collects in a huge underground pool called a magma chamber. A volcano forms where magma finds a way to the surface. When the pressure in the magma chamber becomes too great, the magma bursts out through cracks or vents. Once it reaches the surface, it is called lava. Over time, layers of cooled lava and ash can build up to form a mountain. Most volcanoes are found near the edges of tectonic plates, the giant slabs of rock that make up the Earth's outer layer. More than half of the world's active volcanoes surround the Pacific Ocean, in a horseshoe-shaped zone known as the Ring of Fire. Scientists sort volcanoes into three groups. Active volcanoes have erupted recently and could erupt again. Dormant volcanoes have not erupted for a very long time but might wake up in the future. Extinct volcanoes are not expected to erupt ever again. Although eruptions can be deadly, volcanoes also bring benefits. Volcanic ash breaks down into rich soil, which is why many farms are found on the slopes of old volcanoes. In some countries, such as Iceland, the heat from underground is used to warm homes and produce electricity.

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Question 8
Read "Inside a Volcano". Why are many farms found on old volcanoes?
- A. Lava waters the crops.
- B. Volcanic ash makes rich soil.
- C. There are no other places to farm.
- D. The land is always warm.

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Answer key: Making inferences

1. B. The fisherman was leaving that evening and Master Corvo was ill.
2. B. Turtles can mistake shiny plastic for jellyfish and eat it.
3. D. confident and reasonable
4. B. She was quick and protective when it mattered.
5. D. Cutting with scissors can be tricky or unsafe.
6. B. The subject is painful or difficult for her.
7. C. Morning is coming and the moon is disappearing.
8. B. Volcanic ash makes rich soil.