Inference

What are inference skills?

Inference skills are a type of thinking skill that enables you to make guesses, assumptions and predictions based on prior knowledge. To be able to draw inferences is a higher-order skill in reading comprehension and teaching inference is an important part of reading instruction. The inference process begins in the early years where young learners are asked questions about picture books

Reading comprehension resources to develop inference skills

Our collection of worksheets, PowerPoints and reading comprehension texts includes inference tasks on character traits, inference questions based on biographies of historical figures and quizzes to develop and improve inferencing skills.

For more resources to develop reading comprehension strategies, see our main comprehension page. You might also like our comprehension teaching packs: Reading at KS1, Comprehension at lower KS2, Comprehension at upper KS2, Reading SATs practice for KS2 and Raising reading skills. With clear links to National Curriculum objectives, they each include a range of text extracts, SATs-style inference questions and reading strategies to embed essential reading comprehension skills.