Horn Lake High School Opens Doors to Show What High School Literacy Intervention Can Look Like Using Reading Horizons

Students use Reading Horizons system to decode words in Ms. Angelica Hoffman’s reading intervention class

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Across the country, high school students are falling further behind in reading. Only 30% of 8th graders and 35% of 12th graders scored at or above proficient on the 2024 NAEP, and 12th graders posted their lowest average reading scores since the assessment began in 1992, down 10 points from that baseline. Like school districts across the country, DeSoto County Schools recognized that some students reach secondary school needing additional reading support, a challenge the national data reflects at every grade level. Rather than wait for a solution to arrive, district leaders began investing in one.

On Monday, Horn Lake High School opened its doors to offer a look inside one of the district's most unconventional classrooms: a reading intervention program where students who arrived in high school reading years below grade level are now advancing multiple grade levels in a single semester. After three semesters of daily, 92-minute Tier 3 intervention, fewer than 10% remained below grade level, down from roughly 75% at the start. The cohort averaged more than 250 Lexile points of growth per student, with several gaining between 400 and 700+, and more than 6,000 total Lexile points combined.

The class is a Tier 3 reading intervention, the highest and most intensive level of structured academic support a school can provide, reserved for students whose gaps are significant enough to require individualized instruction from a specialist outside the regular classroom. At Horn Lake, that specialist is Reading Interventionist Angelica Hoffman.

Hoffman teaches each lesson herself, the class works through it together, singing and moving through decoding exercises as a group, and then students practice individually before turning to the Reading Horizons software to demonstrate mastery. After working through the lesson together, students log in to prove what they know in the system to test their understanding and track their progress.

"Reading doesn't come naturally. It has to be taught, and for kids who feel like they should already know how to do it by the time they get to high school, that weight can be crushing,” says Hoffman. “When they walk into my classroom, all of that changes. We go from ‘can’t’ to ‘not yet.’ We breathe new life into old rhythms. We move, we sing, we make it something they actually want to do, and for the first time, my students start to believe they can."

DeSoto County Schools uses Reading Horizons’ Elevate for intervention across grades 6 through 12, with Horn Lake High School serving as the district's pilot campus. Districtwide, the average Lexile growth for high school students using the program is approximately 200 points. Students enrolled in Hoffman's class earn elective credits toward graduation. The program runs five days a week across the full 92-minute block and has been in place for four years. It began with students receiving about an hour of instruction per week; the expanded dedicated time is what Hoffman and district leaders credit for the growth they now see.

The stakes extend beyond academics. Hoffman points to concrete milestones her students have been able to reach after building their reading skills: passing the Mississippi driver's test, which reads at approximately a 1,000 to 1,100 Lexile level (roughly 9th to 10th grade), filling out job applications, applying for college or vocational programs, and navigating daily tasks that most people take for granted. For students who arrived in high school unable to access those things, the gains are not just academic.

“These are young people who are going to join our workforce, lead our communities, and build something bigger than themselves, and every one of them deserves the chance to do it,” says Allison Ward, Literacy Consultant at Reading Horizons. “Reading is a human right. What Ms. Hoffman and the educators of DeSoto County have built at Horn Lake is proof that when you commit to teaching it the right way, students rise to meet it."

"Reading Horizons gave us the structure and the tools we needed to finally address something we knew was a problem but didn't know how to fix,” said Dr. Shannon Eldridge, academic specialist for high schools, DeSoto County Schools. “Ms. Hoffman is a tremendous example of what that looks like in practice, and she is not alone. Across DeSoto County, teachers are bringing that same commitment to their classrooms every day. We've watched students gain multiple grade levels in a single program cycle. We are incredibly proud of our teachers and students."

The initiative began around ten years ago when DeSoto County began building out its secondary literacy infrastructure, starting structured literacy conversations before many districts were having them and expanding implementation as teachers were trained and early results came in. The district's commitment reflects a belief that every student deserves access to instruction that meets them where they are.

Mississippi's statewide structured literacy push has produced measurable results at the elementary level, with the state climbing from 49th in the nation on the 4th grade NAEP reading assessment in 2013 to 9th by 2024.

About Reading Horizons

For over 40 years, Reading Horizons® has partnered with educators to combat illiteracy through effective, research-based reading instruction. Grounded in Structured Literacy, Reading Horizons provides Pre-K–12 core literacy, K–5 supplemental foundational and language literacy, and K–12 intervention solutions that help all students become confident readers. Learn more at readinghorizons.com and listen to Literacy Talks, a podcast exploring fresh perspectives on literacy, learning, and teaching.

About DeSoto County Schools

Led by Superintendent, Cory Uselton, DeSoto County Schools is the largest school district in Mississippi, serving more than 34,000 students across 43 schools in the Memphis metropolitan area. Located in fast-growing DeSoto County, the district serves a diverse student population that is 42% Black, 41% White, 6% Hispanic/Latino, and 2% Asian, with 35% of students economically disadvantaged.