During the 2022–2023 school year, the Mississippi Reading Clinic (MRC), founded by the Barksdale Reading Institute, partnered with local schools in Jackson, Mississippi to confront long-standing gaps in reading achievement. At the beginning of the year, only 20% of assessed seventh graders were reading at grade level. Many were either missing or misreading around 15% of the words in a text. These decoding difficulties limited comprehension and confidence, leaving students disconnected.

Determined to give students a path forward, MRC and school leaders turned to Really Great Reading’s structured literacy approach. They identified a group of seventh graders in the 30th percentile to receive targeted intervention to repair their missing foundational skills. The goal was ambitious yet clear: deliver focused, research-based lessons that would move students from frustration to fluency in just a few weeks.

This initiative unfolded in a district serving thousands of students across dozens of schools, where educators are deeply committed to equity and improvement despite the pressures of high poverty and limited resources. Against this backdrop, the case study shows how an intentional, data-driven approach can unlock remarkable growth for students who have struggled for years.