The Difference Between Inference & Prediction

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What Is The Difference Between Inference & Prediction?

by TeachThought Staff

Reading comprehension is a core tenet of schooling.

Many K-12 academic standards emphasize–and require–strong literacy skills and some (i.e., Common Core State Standards), requiring for it to be taught across content areas rather than in isolation.

This means math, science, social studies, and even technology teachers will soon be in on the challenging–and rewarding–task of helping students better understand what they’re reading.

The Difference Between Inference And Prediction

Understanding the difference between inference and prediction is one of classic challenges in literacy instruction, in addition to the difference between main idea and theme, mood and tone, and reading versus deep reading, and so on. Some of it is a mater of jargon. An argument could be made that, like main idea and theme, that distinguishing between the two is more trouble than it’s worth.

But if we are truly teaching students to close read a variety of texts and digital media, understanding the nuance of reading ourselves as teachers of all content areas is important. So what’s the distinction? Ultimately, the difference between inference and prediction is one of fulfillment: while itself a kind of inference, a prediction is an educated guess (often about explicit details) that can be confirmed or denied, while an inference is more concerned with the implicit.

See also Reading Comprehension Apps

In general, if it’s discussing a future event or something that can be explicitly verified within the ‘natural course of things,’ it’s a prediction. If it’s a theory formed around implicit analysis based on evidence and clues, it’s an inference.

Both inferences and predictions require students to combine clues, evidence, and background knowledge to form a theory.

This has always been our understanding of things anyway. Let us know in the comments section if you think of it differently.