What is interpretation?

Interpretation is when we take something that’s not clear and turn it into something we understand.

Imagine you have a box of crayons, but all the colors are mixed up. You pick one out, it’s purple, but you think it might be blue. That’s interpretation, you’re guessing what the color is based on how it looks to you. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're not, but that's okay!

When you read a picture book, the words are one thing, and the pictures are another. But when you put them together, you interpret what’s happening in the story. Maybe the character is happy because they’re smiling, or maybe they're sad because they're crying. You use your own feelings to help understand the story.

When your friend says “I’m going to the park,” you might think they mean the big park near your house, or the small one down the street. That’s interpretation, you’re using what you know to figure out what they really mean.

Interpretation is like a fun game of guesswork that helps us understand the world around us!