INFERENTIAL THINKING: CHARACTERISTICS, TOOLS, EXAMPLES - ECONOMÍA - 2025

The inferential thinking or inferential comprehension is a skill that corresponds to the second level of reading comprehension. It allows to identify implicit messages in the text from the subject's previous experiences. This way of understanding new information (the text) is based on culturally given schemes, scripts and models.

Inferential thinking consists of reasoning beyond the text and differs from literal understanding in that it refers to the explicit information contained in the text. This skill is what allows readers not only to understand the text, but to “fill in” the gaps in the text with their own experience or knowledge.

What is inferential thinking?

Inferential is a type of thinking that allows you to combine different ideas, draw conclusions, identify morals and themes from the readings, interpret and discuss the information read.

It is about understanding information fed by the experiences and patterns of each individual.

The discipline that studies inferential understanding is psycholinguistics, because inferential capacities start from a cognitive component (prior knowledge) and a linguistic component (characteristics of the text such as content, form, etc.).

Within this discipline, constructivist theory is the one that has studied inferential thinking the most, in relation to the understanding of narrative texts (stories, stories, among others).

Types of inferences

Inferences are mental representations that the person who reads or listens to a text constructs after applying their own knowledge to the explicitness of the message. There are different types of inferences with different levels of complexity.

- Local or cohesive inferences

They function as ways of connecting information and occur during the comprehension process. These can be referential inferences and antecedent causal inferences.

For example, in the text "Maria was talking to her grandmother, when she suddenly started crying" the reader should understand that "this" refers to the grandmother.

-

They organize or group the information into “packages” with themes and allow to connect the local data of the text with the data of the memory.

These inferences can be superordinate goals, thematic inferences, assessment of emotional reactions, and subcategory inferences.

An example of this type of inference is when you understand the moral of a text.

-

There are inferences that are given after having read the text and serve as a complement to the information read to understand why certain actions or events are mentioned.

These can be causal consequences, instrumental inferences, pragmatic inferences, and predictive inferences.

Main features

Understanding a text is a fairly complex process that must result in a representation of the meaning of a text. However, the meaning of a text is not given from the written words but is given in the mind of the person who reads it.

- Inferential understanding goes beyond simply understanding the information that is presented in the text. It requires the reader to start from the knowledge they had previously acquired.

- Inferential thinking is crucial because it allows us to predict and understand the reality that surrounds us, which allows us not to depend on what is given, but to go further. In the case of a text, this ability allows us to read between the lines.

- This ability to infer the relationship between two or more events requires complex reasoning that involves different mental processes.

This complex process is carried out through three components:

- The sensory system, which processes visual and auditory information.

- The working memory, where the information is processed live and its integration occurs.

- Long-term memory, where prior knowledge is stored with which the information in the text will be compared.

Development of inferential thinking

Like all skills, inferential thinking develops as the natural evolutionary process occurs in children. Therefore, this ability is seen at different levels depending on the age of the children evaluated.

For example, in 3-year-old children, a better handling of complementary inferences is observed, which are the inferences with the lowest level of complexity.

Around the age of 4, the ability to make inferences becomes easier for children and it is observed that they can already make global inferences better. At 5 years they can make global inferences with better performance.

Tools to develop inferential thinking

A series of strategies can be used and applied to help students develop this inferential understanding ability, although the teacher must adapt it to the age and characteristics of the children.

The characteristics that have been shown to influence the acquisition of this skill are motivation towards this type of reading task, having a large vocabulary and having an adequate working memory.

Suitable texts

To promote the development of this skill, the first thing to keep in mind is to choose texts that are appropriate, without being too easy or difficult.

Likewise, they must be texts that are not too explicit and that allow a certain level of inference.

Teachers as role models

One of the most recommended strategies for teachers to serve as role models for students. For example, they can say aloud the inferential mental process they are doing: "Surely that was an excuse for the wolf to eat piglets, because wolves usually hunt farm animals."

Importance of vocabulary and lexicon

You also need to work on expanding your vocabulary, for example by identifying and defining unfamiliar words in the text. Similarly, students should be trained in the use of pronouns and connectors.

Questions and remarks

The teacher can ask questions that provoke the inferential process. For example, you can ask them how they know a certain piece of information, what are the relationships between characters, as well as their motivations.

You can also make observations, as you will see in the last section of this article.

Follow-up reading

They can be trained in a way to track reading by answering questions about who is participating, where it is taking place and why the events are taking place.

Example

One way to develop inferential thinking is by making observations, which encourage students to draw possible inferences. For example:

Remark: the grass on the playground is wet.

Possible inferences: it rained. The sprinkler was on. There is a dew on the grass.

Another example:

Note: the queue to drink at the water fountain is long.

Possible inferences: it's hot outside. The students have just arrived from recess.

References

1. Banks, K. (2012). Are Inferential Reading Items More Susceptible to Cultural Bias Than Literal Reading Items? Applied measurement in education, 25 (3), pp220-
2. Chaves, L. (2011). Development of inferential thinking skills and reading comprehension in children aged three to six years. Panorama, 9, pp 103-125.
3. Cisneros-Estupiñán, M., Olave-Arias, G. and Rojas-García, I. (2012) How to improve inferential capacity in university students. Educ. Educ., 15 (1), pp 45-61.
4. Duque, C., Vera, A. and Hernández, A. (2010). Inferential understanding of narrative texts in first readers: a literature review. OCNOS Magazine, 6, pp 35-44.
5. Florit, E., Roch, M. and Levorato, C. (2011). Listening Text Comprehension of Explicit and Implicit Information in Preschoolers: The Role of Verbal and Inferential Skills. Discourse Processes, 48 ​​(2), 119-138.
6. Graesser, A., Singer, M. and Trabasso, T. (1994). Constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension. Psychological Review, 101 (3), pp 371-395.
7. Kispal, A. (2008). Effective Teaching of Inference Skills for Reading: Literature Review. National Foundation for Educational Research
8. Paris, S., Lindauer, B. and Cox, G. (1977). The development of Inferential Comprehension. Child Development, 48 (4), pp1728-1733.
9. Puche, R. (2001). Inferences and gravitational practices in the child in the second semester of life. Psychology from the Caribbean, 8, pp63-93.
10. Zeithamova, D., Schlichting, M. and Preston, A. (2012). The hippocampus and inferential reasoning: building memories to navigate future decisions. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, pp 1-14.