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By maryteach

Those are some super ideas!

I have a story I think you'll appreciate, as a fellow sixth grade teacher:

One of my reading groups was reading Bud, Not Buddy one year. Remember the part where Bud tries to
enter the food line, but is too late? The guard tries to kick him out of the line, when a man and his wife in the line see what's going on. The man walks up to Bud, whacks him upside the head and says, "Clarence! Where have you been? Your mother is worried sick! Get over there right now!" (I probably shouldn't have used quotes, as that's not a direct quotation. Oh well). Gratefully,

Bud gets into line with the family.

My question was: Why is the man calling Bud "Clarence?" Almost all of the kids in that group told me "Because he thinks he's his son." !!!!!!!

This really floored me and so we talked about it. I asked the kids if they thought most parents got confused about who was and was not their kid. They told me no. I asked them if their parents ever got them confused with another kid. They told me no. Why then, I asked, do you think this man is confused about who is and isn't his son? Well, then they started to get it and they felt sort of dumb to have missed it (well, they should have!).

This completely highlighted for me the need to aggressively teach inferencing. It still surprises me that kids just shrug and and say "Oh well" when something doesn't make sense to them. They just keep on going. I remember making similar decisions when I didn't understand what I was reading as a kid. I turned out to be a good reader, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it so much, but when so many of them missed that inference, I was surprised.