Reading Instruction 2

Case Study: EDU 734B

Student Name: Cesar Bustillo

Age: 9

Grade: 3

Background Information: Cesar is the youngest of three boys. He was born a very healthy baby and had no developmental delays during his infant-toddler years. Cesar’s family is from El Salvador, however, Cesar was born in the United States. When he was in the Kindergarten, he witnessed his brother get shot. Cesar is in the 3rd grade and his father speaks fluent English and Spanish. His mother speaks no English, only Spanish Cesar’s brothers speak fluent English and Spanish. He is often left home with his brothers because his parents work the night shift and they rarely get a chance to spend time with him. Cesar’s parents have never been in to the school this year for a parent conference. They have no working phone. Cesar is often extremely unkempt and arriving to school sometimes two hours late. He is very hungry once he arrives at school.

Academic Background: Cesar has been retained once in the 1st grade and is still reading at least two or more grades below grade level. He performs inconsistently on classroom assignments. He struggles tremendously with vocabulary. His listening comprehension is very strong. He scores anywhere from basic to low proficient on formal assessments. His running record assessment shows that he can read independently on a First grade level. Cesar would only do work if it required reading questions and finding the answer within the text. He would perform well on those types of assignments. However, any assignment that required him to read and comprehend information he would fail. He would not attempt to do the assignment at all. One of his biggest strengths was finding the main idea and supporting details. Vocabulary, inferencing, and summarizing were his biggest weaknesses.

Assessment Data: On all three benchmark assessments for the school year Cesar scored “at risk” on all three SRI assessments for the year. This was his first year taking the state benchmark assessment and he had a really difficult time staying calm during the assessment. He showed characteristics of nervousness during each time he had to take the benchmark assessment. Cesar was in a reading pull-out group all year getting remedial work through a computer software program. He also received ESOL services but, was told that he may “test out” next school year. He was invited to the afterschool enrichment program due to his low performance on the county assessments but he would only attend one out of the three days. While taking the state benchmark in May he asked his teacher “What am I supposed to do with this?” “This is too hard” “I can’t do this” and he then put his head down and went to sleep until testing was over. This was usually the case with most assessments that he took.