Fang-tastic Inferences

Jennifer: Halloween is my favorite holiday. I am too old for trick-or-treating but I love it because I love spooky things.

Do you like Halloween? Did you like it as a kid if not presently?

We recently read a book called Who Will Haunt My House on Halloween? By Jerry Pallotta and David Biedrzycki. The story takes place on Halloween night. This little girl is getting ready by making sure the candy is ready to give out to trick-or-treaters who may stop by her house. She wonders who will “haunt her house” that evening. She thinks about all kinds of monsters and how scary they are.
There could be:
 Ghosts:

 Bats:

Witches:

Skeletons:

To find out how this book ends, read it for yourself!

Making interferences is a hard reading strategy for children to grasp.  We need to really guide the students in this process until they have a complete mastery. 

We would read Who Will Haunt My House on Halloween? to the students before they started the activity.

For the activity, we would give each students three sticky notes.  For each sticky note, there is a different category the students have to write on.  The three categories are as follows:

1.       Observe

a.       The author’s words written in black and white.

2.       Schema

a.       The students’ prior knowledge about the subject.

3.       Inference

a.       What the students are inferring using the author’s words and their own prior knowledge.

An example of this activity is:

	1. Observe = the holiday is Halloween 2. Schema = Halloween is in October 3. Inference = this book takes place in October After the students write something in each of the three categories, the students will share with the class and put their sticky notes in the correct column.  We feel this this book would be a great one to show to children.  Children love to dress up for Halloween and go trick or treating.  Some children might get scared during Halloween, and this book would be a good one to show them that people do get scared just like them.  Children will remain focused when you read this book because it is fun and entertaining.  Children have a lot of prior knowledge about Halloween so this would be a good topic for children to make inferences with.  All in all, we believe that this book would be a great book to show to children. Boys and Girls of every age watch this video to see our town of Halloween!! Check out the website we got the inference activity from!