Free Inference Worksheets and Exercises

Kelly Roell is the author of "Ace the ACT. " She has a master's degree in secondary English education and has worked as a high school English teacher.

When you're trying to teach your students to master reading comprehension skills, they need to successfully maneuver through difficult texts and make inferences. Without this skill, much of what students read can go right over their heads. They need to be able to tap into prior knowledge and use context clues to draw meaning from whatever it is they're reading.

Inference worksheets and exercises can help your students hone these skills. These slides cover several areas for making inferences: sample sentences, a short fiction piece, a political speech, and political cartoons. Links for each slide will take you to complete articles about the subject, which, in turn, offer links to the worksheets and exercises, including answer sheets in some cases.

Sample Sentences

Short sentences with content ranging from conversation to real-life scenarios can help middle school students through ninth-graders learn how to make inferences about what they have read. Ten questions with open-ended responses include such varied but interesting topics as eating after a baby has touched the food, a Valentine's Day gift, a man running after a bus, and a woman walking into a hospital clutching her abdomen.

Fiction Passage

A short fiction passage is aimed at students who are in 10th grade and above. Multiple-choice questions will help students who have moved past the basics and need some ACT or SAT inference practice. The worksheet will help your students master those test-taking strategies.

Speech: "On Being Found Guilty of Treason"

A long nonfiction speech by Robert Emmet, who led an unsuccessful uprising in Dublin in 1803, is geared toward students in 10th grade and above. This worksheet offers five multiple-choice questions for students who have moved past the basics and need more ACT or SAT inference practice.

Political Cartoons

Political cartoons serve as the foundation for inference practice for students in grade 11 and above. Ten questions call for open-ended responses to the drawings. Students will need to view and read the cartoons and make educated guesses about the meaning of each one based on the information presented. This is a good exercise to use if you have a group of students who need to master making educated guesses but have a hard time staying focused on longer passages.

More Reading Practice

While you have students study and learn how to make inferences, review general reading comprehension. Without understanding what they have read, students will not be able to make inferences about it. This is a good time to help them sharpen their ability to understand and explain what they read.

Use these reading practice worksheets and strategies to bolster your lesson plans. With over 25 worksheets on skills like finding the main idea, determining the author's tone, figuring out the author's purpose, and understanding vocabulary in context, your students will master the content quickly and easily. Strategies, tricks, and free printable PDF files are included.