Why Should We Teach Inferential Vocabulary To Our Speech Students

One way we can differentiate ourselves as SLPs from reading teachers is by breaking down inferential skills into various components.  One component we can address….vocabulary.

 

Inferencing has many components required in order to be successful.  Students need to have listening comprehension skills, sentence structure skills, vocabulary, memory, and the ability to respond to questions.  There are a lot of pieces required!  In this blog post, I will focus on the vocabulary of inferencing.

 

Speech Students Need To Understand the Vocabulary in the Text

If they don't know what they read/hear, they cannot make meaning of it and answer questions about it! How can we tackle this….we can help them with strategies such as context clues strategies.  CLICK HERE to read all about my favorite context clues strategies that we can use in speech to help our students and ensure carryover.

I also focus primarily on tier 2 vocabulary words since it will help my students more in the long run.  Learn more about working on tier 2 vocabulary words by CLICKING HERE!

 

Helping our speech students understand the vocabulary of literal vs. inferential questions

They need to know the difference in order to know what is expected of them.  Is it a right there in the story question or will they have to think a bit more?  I love to use visuals to help them grasp this and get more familiar with the different question types.  You can grab this visual FREE and learn more about it by CLICKING HERE!

 

Helping our speech students with the vocabulary of responding to inferential questions

Once they grasp the passage/text and know that they have to respond to an inferential question….now they need to know how to answer it!  We can help them using visuals and practice using these terms in conversation.  Encourage them to use them often.  Have contests on how many times they can use the words in a sentence.  Let them listen to each other and not repeat a phrase another student already used.  I also have a free craft that you can use to practice getting familiar with inferential vocabulary.  CLICK HERE to grab it free!

 

So there ya have it!  Some fun ways to work on inferential vocabulary in speech therapy!  The more you break down this tricky skill for your students, they will grasp it and start to make progress with inferencing all together!  They will be more confident and willing to take more risks academically too!