How Do You Read Between the Lines?

Description of Learner:
Maria is a 42-year old woman from Argentina who has been in the United States for 17 years. She attended school in Argentina until the 10th grade and left school at that time to help support her family. After immigrating to the United States, Maria enrolled in English as a second language classes (ESL) and completed instruction through the intermediate level. She passed the state-licensing requirement to become a manicurist, and she enjoys a successful career in that field. Maria entered a local adult education program to obtain a high school diploma as a personal goal.

Challenge Faced:
Maria enrolled in the External Diploma Program (EDP) where students must pass a reading, writing, and math diagnostic before they are eligible to begin the Assessment phase of the program The Assessment phase requires successful demonstration of 65 life-skill competencies in reading, writing and math. Although Maria has successfully completed the writing and math diagnostics, she has, after two attempts, been unable to pass the inference questions on the reading comprehension portion of the test. Before she can move forward, Maria needs to pass this reading requirement.

What We Did:
Maria and I began a dialogue about the meaning of "reading between the lines." I explained that "infer," means to reach a conclusion based on what one observes or the facts at hand. I chose pictures from magazines and books without any text and asked Maria to write what she saw in the pictures. One picture depicted a house in disrepair. I asked her to write a few sentences about what she observed, as I prompted her with questions such as: "Is the house empty or occupied?" "What do you think the neighbors think of this house?" In our discussion, Maria decided the house was empty, because it was in disrepair and several windows were broken. She also decided that the neighbors probably didn't like the condition of the house, because the surrounding houses were neat with well kept lawns. Using this model, I gave Maria other pictures to analyze. I asked her to bring in additional pictures with a short paragraph about what she observed in each.

Analysis:
Maria has strong verbal skills and discussing the pictures allowed her to use this strength to infer the circumstances as she studied the pictures. I encouraged her to think of situations in her daily life in which she had "read between the lines" to get the real facts. With an understanding of how to approach learning the skill, she was able to progress successfully to inference exercises in Pre-GED (General Educational Development Test) texts.

What I Learned:
I thought it important to capitalize on Maria's strength in oral communication to help her think out loud about making inferences. Using her knowledge from life experiences helped her see that she often uses the skill of 'reading between the lines' and that she can use this skill to make inferences in academic settings.

Maria, Group Discussion:

Why did you choose to work with pictures on inference instead of text since you are teaching a reading skill?
Inference is a high-level critical thinking skill, and it is often challenging for students from diverse cultural backgrounds. I wanted to use pictures with Maria in the beginning, so she could draw on her own background experiences. I felt this was a way to engage her and gain insights into her problem solving skills.

Was the use of pictures sufficient for Maria to pass the EDP reading question?
Not entirely, but this activity laid a foundation for her to begin thinking about the process of developing inference skills for reading. We continued with books and other material for practice and reinforcement. It took time, but Maria was successful in applying 'reading between the lines' to pass the inference portion of the reading test.

What kind of pictures did Maria bring in? Did they show that she was understanding inference?
Maria brought in magazines she found in the beauty salon where she works. Mostly, they were pictures of celebrity couples and fashion styles. She wrote a few sentences about each of the pictures. For the celebrities, she observed they were rich and spent lots of time exercising and attending to their appearance. For the fashion pictures, she simply wrote that she either liked or disliked the clothes. She was able to discuss the clues in the beauty magazine pictures, and that helped her make the above inferences. Thus, I believe she understood the process of 'reading between the lines.'

How do you get an adult to be willing to work with pictures and not have her feel is it a "put down?"
I was able to enlist Maria in working with pictures, because I spent time explaining that learning inference is difficult, and that by first working with pictures, we could lay the foundation for mastery in making inferences later when reading. Perhaps this approach would not work with all students, but adults, like Maria, who are close to obtaining a high school diploma, are usually secure enough to experiment with seemingly unorthodox ways to approach a problem.

Summary:

Director's Comments:

Using pictures to teach reading inferences is an excellent approach, because it is non-threatening and focuses on the specific skill rather than on reading. For future students needing this skill, you may wish to select the pictures from news magazines to broaden the opportunities for making inferences from pictures. She seemed to have gotten stuck when using the same type illustrations which could hamper the speed of skill development.