Academics
Great Minds Learn Differently
Someone with a great mind approaches the world from a different angle.
They learn differently.
Many people throughout history that have been highly influential – including Thomas Jefferson and Daniel Radcliffe – learned differently. It's their unique perspective that sets them apart.
The Woodlynde Difference
Students who learn differently find success when they break from educational approaches that assume everyone learns the same way.
Woodlynde specializes in supporting the many different ways students learn. Differently even, from the friend sitting next to us who also has a learning difference.
It’s not one thing that makes Woodlynde’s academic program unique.
It’s the thoughtful development of a distinctive philosophy and program with roots in both expert research and the practical experience of the last fifty years at the forefront of learning differences (LD) education.
Learning Differences First
Woodlynde was one of the first independent schools in the nation to pilot and adopt a differentiated approach to instruction called Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
Our educators provide multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression in our classrooms. That means we’re teaching to each learner’s variability the first time around. You might expect at a school our size that pull-out services and one-on-one sessions abound, but that is not the case. Our goal is to give your student access to the education they deserve without sacrifice, isolation, or ostracization. Since our founding, we’ve excelled at being LD-first. We optimize the level of challenge, prioritize choice and self-assessment, illustrate through multiple media, activate background knowledge, vary methods of assessment, and much more within a single classroom environment. It’s not a should for us, it’s a must.
Why UDL?
Woodlynde’s dedication to UDL transforms students into expert learners who are purposeful and motivated, resourceful and knowledgeable, strategic and goal-oriented. It also means they’ll never be pulled out of their classroom to get the learning they need.
Systematic, Explicit, and Direct Instruction
As one of the original Wilson Accredited Partner Schools in the country, Woodlynde’s commitment to systematic, explicit, and direct instruction is in our DNA. These three teaching strategies are often used interchangeably, but each refers to a specific line of thinking ingrained in our teachers. When you place these frameworks for understanding how learning actually happens alongside our LD-first stance, you begin to understand the magic of a Woodlynde classroom.
What Woodlynde Means For Your Student
A Student's Day at Woodlynde
Get a sample of what a typical day at Woodlynde would look like and how we continually address student needs every day.
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