Unlocking inference - introduction

Overview

This series of videos, presented by literacy advisers Christine Chen and Lindsay Pickton, unpicks a sequence of lessons in which children are taken through a new text - an extract from Mary Poppins - in stages, gradually building their comprehension and inference skills until they are able to answer challenging questions about what they are reading. It’s a method that supports children of all abilities, first through whole-class reading, and then a line-by-line examination of the text. The approach also takes time to broaden pupils’ vocabulary, exploring words and adding nuance to their meaning - all of which unlocks the ability to make inferences.

Course Creator

Christine and Lindsay are experienced English specialists based in Kingston upon Thames. They support numerous primary schools, alliances and federations. Both have worked in schools as senior literacy teachers and helped to launch and run school improvement programmes across their borough, and written for publishers including OUP, Pearson and Collins.

About the Course

This series of live lessons show a tried and tested approach to whole-class reading in action. We see how choral reading can improve fluency and comprehension for all pupils and how this leads to a close reading of the text and an exploration of vocabulary that unlocks inference for the class. It’s a process that gives children the skills they need to tackle comprehension questions at a higher level.