Reading Between the Lines: Teaching Children to Understand Inference

This book is designed for teachers and speech and language therapists working in the fields of language and literacy, and concerned with developing inferencing skills in their students.

The ability to draw inference is a crucial element in the comprehension of written language, and this valuable tool aids in mainstream classes throughout Key Stage 2 (age 7-11). It is especially appropriate for work with children with speech, language and communication needs and those on the autistic spectrum, who are likely to have particular difficulty understanding inference.

This book contains a collection of 300 texts which are graded, and lead the student gradually from simple tasks with picture support and plentiful clues to more challenging scenarios where true inference is required. The texts can be used with whole classes, groups and individual children.

Highly regarded authors Catherine Delamain and Jill Spring are both very experienced speech therapists with a reputation for developing very practical resources to help teachers and speech therapists working with children.

"The sheer large number of examples available (300 texts) allows for a number of sessions to be focused around inferencing without repetition (or boredom) to occur, the examples are very diverse but also clear and applicable to the children in my caseload. Scenarios are very much reflective of everyday life situations which the child will encounter at some point (Kudos for generalisation of therapy skills!). Photocopiable pages! A therapist’s dream come true, photocopy an example and make your session interactive, highlighting and/or underlining important text before asking the question allows the child an opportunity to evaluate the importance of key texts. So if you are considering new resources for your inferencing therapy sessions, I’d say ‘Go for it’, incredibly useful resource. You won’t run out of things to do."
- Kalifa, London Speech Therapy