How to Score the Basic Reading Inventory Reflection

Basic Reading Inventory Reflection Paper Part I: Findings Upon administering the BRI to a struggler Reader, I undertook the process of reflection in order to consider the experience overall. The Reader’s name was Diana: she is 8 years old and enrolled in the third grade. Currently, she is one year behind her current reading grade level she should be in--i.e., she is reading at a 2nd grade reading level instead of a 3rd.

She is attending Patricia DiChiaro in Yonkers, NY, and the BRI revealed quite a few things about her ability to read. For the first part of the BRI, Diana had to read aloud a paragraph about dodge ball. Each line was analyzed according to miscues made by the student during the reading exercise.

Miscues consisted of substitution (in which a wrong word was read instead of the word on the page), insertion (in which the reader inserts a word into the reading that is not there), omission (in which a reader neglects to read a word on the page), and reversal (in which the reader reverses the order of words on the page when reading aloud). The best part of this exercise was that Diana committed zero omissions and read every word on the page.

She also committed only one insertion and one reversal. However, she committed nine substitutions. This was the major fault of Diana and it indicates a problem with her ability to read all the way through the text. In other words, in her attempt to read aloud, she does not work her way through every word but jumps to a conclusion of what the word is based on familiar-sounding letter combinations and says the word that is in her mind instead of reading aloud the word on the page.

This shows a lack of confidence to engage with the text even if it means struggling. Still, one important note was that while there were a total of 11 miscues, the majority of them were of the same type, and of those only four could be counted as significant miscues—meaning that with a little more focus, Diana should be able to read a passage perfectly well and get to where she needs to be.

Another important note is that her miscues did not result in any major meaning changes, and there was no repetition or self-correction. This indicates that Diana for the most part is likely not aware of her miscues when she is making them. If they are pointed out to her, she will probably be able to catch them in the future as they tended to follow a pattern that could be resolved with a little more attention to detail.

Above all, her intonation was good, indicating a clear grasp of the sounds the letters and words should make, which bodes well for a rapid improvement in her reading. Her oral reading rate, moreover, puts her in the 50th percentile of readers her age—so there is considerable upside here and room for improvement.

For the comprehension section, Diana missed 5+ questions indicating that her level of comprehension is at the bottom described as “Frustration”—i.e., she is a frustrated reader and struggles to grasp the meaning of what she is reading. However, the grading rubric did not allow for a very qualitative assessment or for much freedom of interpretation. I believe that Diana’s answers were actually better than the scoring guide made them seem.

For instance, the first question asked what the story was about, and Diana answered, “Hating gym.” This was true. The story was about David’s dislike of gym class, as the very first line stated: “David did not really enjoy gym.” However, there was more to the reading than that, and the rest of it went on to explain David’s play in gym and actually turned out to be quite positive.

So Diana only answered the question by describing the first part of the story and did not give an overall comprehensive review of the excerpt. Was she wrong in stating that the story was about hating gym? No, not at all. But she did not give any indication that it was about more than that. This may not be a comprehension issue, however. Rather it may be a communication issue.

She may not have realized more was expected from her in terms of giving a detailed explanation or overview of the story. I do not feel that this portion of the assessment accurately reflects Diana’ comprehension but rather reflects her communication skill level in terms of what she hears when someone asks a question and what she feels is expected in response. I think that, if pressed, Diana could easily give a more accurate depiction of the entire story’s meaning.

In the graded word list, Diana read the first column of words mostly accurately, reading 17 out of 20 correctly. In the second, she only read 12 out of 20 correctly. Moreover, many of her misses were not even close and suggested a tiredness of the mind, as though it were wandering and not really focusing on the letters in the words but rather seeing one or two and then closing the eyes and saying the first word that appeared in her mind that had a similar letter in it.

Her scores indicated that she is at the instructional/frustrated word level. Overall, Diana did try to make connections in her comprehension but did show signs that there was room for improvement. Her word identification skills were weak, but it could be a sign of being tired, as in the first go-through they were much better than in the second. In her oral and silent reading, she could be distracted, which goes along with her lack of focus in general.

However, her pace of reading did seem appropriate for where she is currently. She tries hard overall and really wants to understand what she is reading. Therefore, I am optimistic that with a little extra practice, Diana will be reading at the grade level she should be at in no time.

Part II: What Did I Learn? What I learned from the BRI is that it is a very helpful way to assess a young learner’s reading level and to identify any problematic trends that one must see coming from the learner. Administering and scoring the BRI helped me to see the value of assessing the various components of a reader’s skills—from reading orally to comprehension to understanding sight words. Identifying.