Use What You Have: Band-Aids for Inferencing In Speech

Working on inferencing in your speech room?  Want a fun way to have students identify their evidence?! Try using band-aids!

Do you keep a stash of Band-Aids in your therapy room?  Did you know that you can use them to work on inferencing?!   Yes!  You read that correctly!  I am serious!  If you don't know anything about me, I am always looking for fun and engaging ways to work on tricky skills.  If they require low prep or what you already have in your therapy rooms…BONUS!  So, one strategy I tend to use while working on inferencing is to get my students to express their answers in complete utterances.

My students have tackled the “what do you see” and they can even most of the time tell me their inferences or responses to the questions.  But they still struggle with telling me “how do you know” or their evidence!  I always encourage them to look into the story to see if they can find a story clue.  I like them to number paragraphs if we are working with a worksheet or long text with multiple paragraphs.  This way they can tell me exactly where they found their answers.  I also like them to pinpoint the exact clue or clue works that helped them generate their responses.  To make it fun and to remind them to locate their clues in a text, we make clue Band-Aids!

I just took a Band-Aid from my stash in my desk, took it out of the wrapper and wrote “clue” using a permanent marker (bonus points for using fun colors lol).  Then, I model for the students different ways to wear it on their fingers!

We start with pictures to show them to point to the clue in the picture that helped them generate their responses.  This way, they can answer with “I know this because __(my clue)___.”  In this picture below, I used the Inferencing Big Deck from Super Duper Inc.

Then, we move onto the paragraph level!  We have fun locating the clues in the text that can help us complete our statement “I know this because_____.”  In the photo below, I used my Capture the Criminal Drawing Conclusions QR Code activity (although you can totally use this activity without the QR codes if you wish).

Learn more about this activity by clicking HERE.

So what are you waiting for?  Grab those Band-Aids and start using them to target inferencing and have your students complete the statement “I know this because ______.”  The clue Band-Aids may be the next hottest fashion trend!