Making Inferences Story Worksheet

An inference is an answer a reader works out instead of finding. The words on the page give the clues, the reader adds what they already know, and together the two make a conclusion the author never wrote down. This Making Inferences Story Worksheet gives second graders one short story built entirely out of that kind of evidence: the season, the weather on the hill, and how the main character feels are all sitting in the details, and not one of them is stated. Learning to read that way is what turns a child who can decode every word into a child who understands the story.

The page opens with an original eighty-word story about a boy named Weston, who wakes up early, pulls on his boots, grabs his sled from the garage, and walks to the big hill behind his house. Four multiple choice questions follow, each answered by reasoning from a clue rather than by copying a sentence, and the child fills in the bubble beside the best answer. A written response at the bottom then asks for one clue from the story in the student’s own words, so this 2nd grade inference worksheet moves a reader from picking an answer to defending one. Read the story aloud together first, then let students work through the questions independently.

What’s Included

• 1 print-ready PDF worksheet
• Answer key
• 1 original 2nd grade story about making inferences
• 4 multiple choice inference questions
• 1 written response asking for a clue from the text

Three things make this making inferences story worksheet work well in a second grade classroom. First, every question is genuinely inferential, so a student who skims for matching words will not find them and has to slow down and think. Second, the clues are concrete and physical — a sled, a warm hat, thick gloves, breath turning into small white clouds — which gives young readers something they can picture and point to. Third, the written response builds the habit of citing evidence, the exact skill state reading assessments ask for when they say “use details from the text.”

Keep the thinking going after the page is finished. Play a guessing game where you describe someone’s job or hobby using three clues and never name it, and let your child name it and say which clue gave it away. Pause during a read-aloud and ask what a character is feeling and how the book showed it without using the feeling word. Try “clue bags” at home: hide three objects that belong to one activity, such as a whisk, a mixing bowl, and an apron, and have your child infer what is about to happen. Each of these takes two minutes and builds the same reading muscle.

Related Resources

• Drawing Inferences Worksheet
• Reading Inferences Worksheet
• What I Read What I Know Inference Graphic Organizer Worksheet
• Context Clues Song from Have Fun Teaching