What is inference?

Inference is when you use what you already know to figure out something new.

Imagine you're playing with blocks. You see a red block and a blue block stacked on top of each other. You know that the red block is bigger than the blue one, and the blue one is smaller. So when you see just the blue block sitting alone, you can infer it’s the small one, even though you don’t see the red block anymore.

Inference is like being a detective. You find clues around you, and from those clues, you guess what might have happened. For example, if your friend's shoes are muddy and their socks are wet, you can infer they walked through puddles outside, even without them telling you.

You do inference every day. When you read a story and figure out how the characters feel, or when you look at the sky and know it’s going to rain because the clouds are dark. It's like having a special tool that helps you make smart guesses based on what you already know, just like knowing which block is small without seeing all of them.