Curriculum

Linden Hill’s highly individualized approach to crafting a learning remediation program for each student has gained Linden Hill an international reputation as a leader in language-based learning remediation for middle school boys.

The Academic Program runs from early September to mid June. It includes Thanksgiving recess, Christmas and spring vacations, and an all school spring trip. Classes are held five days a week. The average student-teacher ratio ranges from two-to-one in Orton-Gillingham language training classes to four-to-one in other courses.

Each academic day, students participate in Language Training, Literature and Composition, Science, Math, History and additional courses including Health Education, Social Pragmatics, Music, Drama, Study Skills and Current Events, as well as Art and Computers.

The Orton-Gillingham method of language training, the heart of Linden Hill’s curriculum, addresses specific elements of the student’s language learning difference and gives each boy the skills to remediate his particular language processing problem. Fundamental skills which a student has missed in previous schooling are re-introduced through a multi-sensory approach. The methods and materials of other systems of remediation (Wilson, Alphabetic Phonics, Project Read, MTA, Slingerland, Lindamood Bell, etc.) are employed as each individual student’s learning needs dictates.

Narrative progress reports and grades, along with reports from each student’s advisor, are sent to parents six times yearly. Parent Conferences are held during Parent’s Weekend in October and once again during the spring term. Linden Hill prides itself on excellent communication with parents and additional conferences can be arranged through the Academic Dean. Individual tests are given to each boy at the beginning and end of each year to determine his placement and to measure his progress. Standardized testing is administered to all students twice yearly, including but not limited to the Woodcock-Johnson III, the Gray Oral Reading Test, and the Gallistel-Ellis Test of Coding Skills. The Diagnostic Assessment of Reading test is also administered three times throughout the year.

Daily homework is integral to the academic program and the 100 minute evening study hall (divided between the before- and after-dinner time of day) is a time for supervised preparation for classes. For younger students study hall time of 60 minutes is completed before dinner. During study hall, faculty members provide individualized assistance and at other times by arrangement.

Each year, all students study a common topic which has been chosen by the faculty as the theme of the year, such as “Roots”, “Diversity”, “Team Work”, “Transportation” and “Water.” At the end of the school year, with their teachers, the boys take a theme-based trip to further explore that topic. In recent years the entire school has traveled to Mexico, Washington, DC, New York City, Florida, Montreal and Quebec, England, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Niagara Falls.