TARGETING INFERENTIAL GOALS VIRTUALLY OR THROUGH DISTANCE LEARNING [middle school & high school]

Here is a list of ideas & resources that I found helpful when working with my junior high students virtually. Feel free to comment below if you have any other ideas or questions, I hope you find this post to be useful! 
​

FREE RESOURCES & IDEAS

• Making Inferences Mystery Pixel Freebie :

​Mystery Pixel activities are fun, interactive activities that promote self-assessment for students in Google Sheets™. Students insert their answers into a Google Sheet™ to reveal the answer to a riddle in pixel picture form.This activity is a fun spin on color by number or picture riddles. You must have access to a google™ account to download the google sheets™ format. 
This product will help your client to make appropriate inferences and be able to explain an inference when given partial statements/situations.
Two levels are included:
• For level one -They will select the correct answer from the drop-down menu. If they choose an incorrect response, the box will turn red.
• Levels two contains a fill in the blank answer format. There is also an answer bank if they are having difficulty producing the correct answers. 
​

• https://www.onceuponapicture.co.uk/the-collections/the-inference-collection/:

​This website is stocked full of amazing images & question sets to elicit language with your clients. They even have a 10 picture/question set just focused on inferences! 
Be sure to check out all of the different collections & "images to inspire"-- you can come up with your own questions for most images! 
These images can easily be inserted into a google form and shared with your students through google classroom. 

• Youtube videos:

​There are a ton of youtube videos out there that are great for inferencing and eliciting language. My personal favorite is "Simon's Cat" on youtube. I recommend pre-watching the videos before sharing with your students! 
The speech express also wrote a great blog post outlining Animated Short Videos for Speech & Language. Her blog post includes links to all of the videos as well! 

• ​"What's in the bag?" :

​This is such a hit with my students when we are in person at school. Essentially you place an item in a brown paper bag and they reach in to feel the item. Since we are going virtual, you can provide some details and have your students guess what the mystery item is. Whoever guesses correct can win some sort of prize or incentive. You can create this in a google form or on a google document to be shared in google classroom weekly.
​

PAID RESOURCES

• ScreenShot Social Scenarios Inference & Problem Solving:

​This product is one of my best sellers & such a hit with my 6-8th graders! 
This activity features YouTube videos displayed on smart phone screens imitating the look of popular apps. Please preview each video before sharing with your students. You will be able to delete the slides/videos that may be inappropriate for your clients.
GOOGLE DRIVE DIGITAL FILE- 28 YouTube Videos focused on social skills
- 3-5 Corresponding questions for each video
- Cell phone filter cards including social scenario/topic cards
- Template
​This product can be accessed using google slides. 

• Problem Solving Through Text Message:

​This product contains 8 pragmatic problem solving text message prompts. Each text message includes 5 questions each. Questions include:- WH questions
- Vocabulary
- Inference
- Problem Solving
- Story Details
- Figurative Language
- Conversational Topics
​
This ENTIRE product---including story comprehension questions are interactive- Student clicks on a question and the document will jump to the correct answer and helps to encourage the use of context clues and multiple choice format. This product can be accessed using an interactive PDF, google slides or BOOM cards. 

• Inference Cards for Older Students:

​This packet contains 17 reading passages with corresponding question sets (multiple choice, short answer, Inference/Fact). This can be accessed in the form of an interactive PDF, google slides, or boom cards. 
​

WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU BEEN USING WITH YOUR OLDER STUDENTS?