Putting Ideas Together
When you make inferences, you think about what the writer says about a topic, what you already know about it, and what ideas we can add. This strategy is called "It Says, I Say, And So".
It Says – What an article says
I say – What you think or already know about the reading's topic.
And So – Your ideas from combining the reading and your own knowledge
Thinking about what you already know and adding it to what you read helps you to better comprehend, or understand, the points the writer makes. Taking notes as you read is a strategy to help do this. Review this page for information on how to combine your ideas with a reading and take notes to keep everything organized.
When we read something for the first time, we often have background knowledge, things we already know about the topic. Even if it's only a small amount of knowledge, it's something we bring with us as we read. This is called prior knowledge.
Combining your prior knowledge with the author's ideas can help you understand the topic and ideas in a reading. One way to do this is with the strategy "It Says, I Say, And So". We'll go through this strategy step by step.
Step 1: Read this paragraph on computers
Computers
Early computers were only conceived as calculating devices. Since ancient times, simple manual devices like the abacus aided people in doing calculations. Early in the Industrial Revolution, some mechanical devices were built to automate long tedious tasks, such as guiding patterns for looms. More sophisticated electrical machines did specialized analog calculations in the early 20th century. The first digital electronic calculating machines were developed during World War II. The first semiconductortransistors in the late 1940s were followed by the silicon-based MOSFET (MOS transistor) and monolithic integrated circuit (IC) chip technologies in the late 1950s, leading to the microprocessor and the microcomputer revolution in the 1970s. The speed, power and versatility of computers have been increasing dramatically ever since then, with MOS transistor counts increasing at a rapid pace (as predicted by Moore's law), leading to the Digital Revolution during the late 20th to early 21st centuries. |
Step 2: What three important things does the reading say about computers? Write them down.
Step 3: What three things did you already know about computers? Was anything you already knew mentioned in this reading? Write that down.
Step 4: Put your ideas together. If you combine what the author said in this reading with what you already know, what can you now say about computers? Write that down.
Adapted from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.