Lesson 6 Focus on Inference (AF3) 38-63

FOR A DEVELOPING READER
Pupil target: Use empathy to make judgements
Features to explore when reading:
• Focus on using empathy to make judgements.
Activity:
Ask pupils to reread The Story of Grandfather’s Footsteps (p61 – 63).
Then ask pupils to write a sentence about:
• What scientists think about ghosts
• What Granny thinks about ghosts
• What Sam thinks about ghosts
• The relationship between Granny and Grandad
• What Granny feels about Sam’s illness – both now and in the past.
FOR A COMPETENT READER
Pupil target: To use inference and deduction when reading a text
Features to explore when reading:
• Focus on inference and deduction
Activity:
• Ask pupils to reread Why Does God Make Kids Get Ill? (p36 – 41)
• Working with a partner, pupils are to rate each of the seven reasons from the points of view of Felix and Sam.
(1 = Definitely True; 2 = Possibly True; 3 = Don’t know; 4 = Possibly Untrue; 5 = Definitely Untrue).
• Based on these decisions, pupils should write one paragraph on Sam and his beliefs and one on Felix and his
beliefs – or lack of them.
FOR AN ACTIVE READER
Pupil target: Interpreting layers of meaning
Features to explore when reading:
• Focus on how characters’ thoughts are expressed in their speech
Activity:
Working with a partner, pupils are to decide what characters are really thinking:
Mrs Willis let us play Top Trumps instead of school. She said if anybody asked, it was Maths. (p38)
‘She gets cured,’ she said. ‘End of story. Now go and blow up some aliens or something’’ (p46)
‘We’ve enough real things to worry about without making up more for ourselves’ (p47)
‘Let’s wait and see,’ they said. Or, ‘Fingers crossed.’ (p49)
‘You’re not writing a weepy book full of poems and pictures of rainbows, are you?’ (p51)
‘It’s quicker if you use the other ones, dear,’ she said. (p56)
Using these as examples, pupils should write a short exploration of the statement:
In this book characters sometimes do not say what they really mean.