While he did not elaborate on most answers, his answers were, for the most part, sufficiently correct to earn at least a half point. He still did very well with questions regarding topic, evaluation, and inferences, and his responses to factual questions improved; but he still did poorly with vocabulary questions, which implies his struggles with vocabulary and unfamiliar and uncommon English words may be impeding his comprehension. Removing the necessity for him to “choose” between correctly reading the words and retaining the information allowed him to concentrate solely on the information, which proved beneficial. 

 During this section of the assessment, Manolo’s body language was much different than it had been previously. While he still did not look the examiner in the eye, he turned his seat towards her and sat back in a more relaxed manner. He did not look up at his classmates, nor did he tap his hand and foot as he had in other sections of the assessment. He was more likely to take his time to think instead of quickly insisting he did not know the answer.

The BRI Assessment revealed some confusing data on Manolo. On the whole, he is frustrated or on the threshold of frustration at grade level (tenth grade) and a grade lower (ninth grade). He is instructional at seventh grade level in most sections of the assessment, even accounting for the strange data presented. This BRI assessment definitively placed Manolo’s independent reading level at sixth grade level. 

The results of the BRI revealed that Manolo has the potential to perform at grade level (tenth grade) with appropriate support. 

Manolo is very strong in listening comprehension and gathering information from discussions; this could be why he has a high B average in his English class, which is a discussion-based class. This could also possibly indicate Manolo is an auditory learner, which, in the examiner’s past research, proves common in many populations of Hispanic immigrants to the United States.

Additionally, Manolo has several weaknesses that need to be addressed so he can reach his reading potential. He has a tendency to fall back on the pronunciation and emphasis patterns of his native language, especially with vowel sounds in unfamiliar words. He also substituted long, unusual words with shorter, more common words, most of which were two syllables; consequently, the passages made much less sense and made it more difficult to work with context clues. His inability to focus on both proper word recognition and oral reading comprehension simultaneously could be indicative of a deeper issue, such as a learning disability. 

Manolo has difficulty with passages that mention numbers or contain numerals, and had a difficult time remembering information in those segments of the passages; this could be connected to his failing grade in Statistics. 

One final potential barrier to Manolo’s progress is his mindset, resigning himself to a life of manual labor without the benefits of a college education. This mindset potentially renders all school learning unnecessary and frustrating. 