Scott Foresman Reading Street

USE A GRAPHIC ORGANIZER

Have partners read both fiction and nonfiction passages. Students can ask each other questions that lead to drawing conclusions. Suggest that they use webs or charts to show the facts or details that support their conclusions.

Graphic Organizer 15

DISCUSS DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

Tell students a conclusion is a sensible decision they reach based on details or facts in a story or an article. Explain when they draw conclusions, they think about information in the text and what they already know.

MODEL DRAWING A CONCLUSION

Model using your own experiences to draw a conclusion.

MODEL The smell of peanuts and cotton candy filled the air. I heard clapping. I even heard loud bellows that sounded like elephants. I knew a circus was going on.

Discuss how you combined what you already knew with details (smell of peanuts and cotton candy, clapping, loud bellows) to draw a conclusion.

ASK QUESTIONS

Read aloud a passage and ask questions that foster drawing conclusions. For example: What kind of person is the main character? How can you tell? Why do you think the character acts this way?

Draw Conclusions

When students move beyond the literal meaning of a text to draw conclusions, they get more ideas from what they read and understand better the points an author is trying to make. Use the following routine to guide students in drawing conclusions.

Keene, Ellin Oliver and Susan Zimmermann. Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader’s
Workshop. Heinemann, 1997, p. 154; 1992, p. 238.

Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann,
Mosaic of Thought

“Inference is a mosaic, a dazzling constellation of thinking processes, but the tiles available
to form each mosaic are limited, circumscribed. There must be a fusion of words on a
page—and constraints of meaning they impose—and the experience and knowledge of the reader.”

Research on Drawing Conclusions