Siena Blog

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Small School Benefits for LD Students 

On our three campuses, Siena creates an individualized learning experience for each student to create a safe, responsive, and nurturing environment that supports their academic and emotional well-being.

Families often wonder what kind of educational environment will truly help their child thrive. At Siena, we understand that every learner’s path is unique — especially for students with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences. Our intentional approach to teaching and community can benefit students with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences in several important, complementary ways. At Siena, individualized instruction and a supportive community come together to help students with dyslexia.

Learn how a student-centric, mission-focused school like Siena can make a major difference for students in the LD community from elementary to middle and then high school. 

Personalized Instruction for LD Students

Siena’s close-knit educational community allows our teachers to better understand each student's strengths, growth areas, and learning needs:

• LD students benefit from teachers who know them well and can adapt to their learning styles, so Siena maintains a maximum 10:1 student-teacher ratio across all courses. This means that our dedicated, expert teachers can personally engage every student and adapt curriculum materials to meet their learning styles. Read about Siena’s dedicated faculty and staff here on our website.
• Tailored instruction and regular support helps LD students understand how they learn best, providing them with ample opportunities for specialized education and self-advocacy from elementary through middle and high school.
• Being able to focus more of their attention on individual students, Siena teachers can strike a balance between academic rigor and encouraging student independence and academic risk-taking.

Classroom Flexibility and Attention

Personalized learning and individualized attention from Siena’s faculty helps create a learning environment of collaboration, empathy, and shared respect for our students. This translates into successful student learning and academic growth in a few ways:

• Flexibility in classroom settings nurtures personalized learning plans that accommodate students’ dyslexia, neurodiversity, and other learning differences.
• Direct access to specialists in reading, assistive technology, college counseling, annual internships, accommodations, and much more is key to student success. For example, our reading team offers regular targeted reading support through multisensory structured language approaches and daily reading intervention using Orton-Gillingham methodology.
• More attention helps with ongoing communication between families, staff, and classroom teachers to share student progress, adjust strategies as needed, and more. 

Community and Confidence

Siena’s connected and student-focused community supports growth and confidence, as well as provides clear social–emotional benefits:

• Schools like Siena foster close-knit relationships between students, teachers, and families, creating a strong sense of community and belonging that benefits everyone.
• Because our students are less likely to fall through the cracks or feel invisible in a small school setting, they typically feel a sense of belonging and of being valued as learners.
• Positive relationships and regular check-ins with faculty and staff can boost self-esteem, which is especially important for LD students who may have faced learning setbacks elsewhere.

Success After Graduation 

Siena’s high school program at our campuses in Silver Spring, MD, and Oakton, VA, focuses on our mission and supports our high school students and families in various ways.

• Siena’s personalized learning environment — where every student is known and supported — helps create successful and independent learners who are gradually prepared for college matriculation in each year of high school and then excel in whatever path(s) they choose after graduation.
• Our regular high school curriculum emphasizes academic rigor and individualized support to best prepare our students for their next academic step.
• A key feature of Siena’s high school curriculum is our dedicated college counselor and multi-year college counseling program. In working with students in grades 9-12, our college counseling program emphasizes college readiness, offers college representative visits, and more to break down the process of applying to and then attending college. Learn more about the college counseling program here.

Across all grade levels, Siena offers a personalized, strengths-based approach where teachers know each student deeply and tailor instruction to how they learn best. This intentional structure — rooted in research, relationships, small classes and individualized support — helps students build confidence, develop independence, and discover the joy of learning.

Resources from Siena’s Blog

See The Siena School blog for more posts of interest, including Why Is Early Intervention Important?, College Prep Begins in High School, and Learning Differences and Student Confidence.

Learn Why Siena Might Be Right for Your Child

The Siena School, a national leader in dyslexia education, serves bright, college-bound students with language-based learning differences on DC Metro area campuses in Silver Spring, MD (grades 3-4 and 5-12) and Oakton, VA (grades 3-12).

Believe it or not, the school year is fast approaching the halfway point. For some parents, it’s time to start weighing options for the summer. Once summer camps and other traditional activities resume, families may feel students need more individual attention on academics to make up for any gaps in learning this past year. 

Finding Appropriate Academic Programs and Local Tutoring Options

Education consultant Ann Dolin has written about parents’ summer anxiety regarding how to find the right amount of academic practice and intellectual rigor over the summer. After almost a year of online learning for many children, parents might not be seeing the typical gains in reading, math, and other skills. “You certainly don’t want a summer where kids aren’t involved in any learning at all, and that’s because they can lose up to two months of progress,” Dolin observed in 2019, “But you don’t want to go overboard, either.” 

While summer school may have negative connotations for students, finding the right balance of rigor and relaxation to help parents keep their children learning is key. Summer academic programs and tutoring that adopt both approaches have significant benefits. Continued academic practice and specialized training throughout the summer are especially important for students with language-based learning differences to prevent summer slide regression in reading and writing skills. 

The Siena School offers both summer academics and tutoring programs for area students (not just current enrollees) to offer a continuity of education between school years. 

Summer Academics for Students with Learning Differences 

Siena Silver Spring’s summer academic program provides students in grades 4–9 with a positive instructional experience that works on review, reinforcement, and enhancement of academic skills. Small classes and a nurturing environment provide fun and creative learning opportunities in reading, writing, and math skills and concepts. Students who participate in summer academic courses get the opportunity to experience the school on a smaller scale and ease into the school community. Seeing Siena’s curriculum, faculty, and strategies before the school year starts smooths students’ transition to a new school after they’ve gained comfort in a new learning environment. 

Siena’s summer academic program provides the same individualized, multisensory approach practiced throughout the school year in a relaxed but rigorous setting. (See Siena’s academics page for more curriculum information.) Students learn and practice using assistive technologies, specific executive functioning techniques, and writing and reading skills that are applied in each class. It’s been consistently beneficial for our new students to attend summer academic sessions to start creating a community with other students who have similar learning differences. 

By first learning new skills, technology, and strategies and then practicing them in class without the added pressure of grades, homework, tests, or quizzes, students can best prepare for the coming school year during the summer. Attending a summer academic session allows students an opportunity to build and practice using a toolkit of skills to carry with them into the fall. 

Summer Tutoring for Students with Learning Differences

Another good option to prepare for the new school year is tutoring in specific subjects. Summer tutoring offers consistency of learning, new skill development, one-on-one instruction, and individualized learning—all at a pace structured for the child. Tutoring can give some structure to a student’s summer day and exposes them to healthy learning practices that they can then continue once the school year starts.

Siena Tutors, Siena’s virtual tutoring program, provides students in grades K-12 with a positive instructional experience focused on each individual’s growth in core academic subjects including reading, writing, math, science, and Spanish. We additionally offer tutoring services with a focus on executive functioning, which includes scheduling, prioritizing tasks, managing workloads, organization, and goal setting. See Siena’s tutoring page for more details about our program and tutors.  

These individualized virtual tutoring sessions—which can be tailored to their needs—equip students with various skills applicable to both their virtual and traditional schooling. The tutors are educational professionals extensively trained in multisensory instruction and accustomed to individualizing lessons. By using the same multisensory approach that Siena does, these tutors offer students new strategies and tools while delivering important educational continuity.

Summer tutoring sessions can offer students an opportunity to preview next year’s curriculum if they struggle with information processing or executive functioning. This preview will help when a student accesses that curriculum the next school year. One-on-one time with a tutor enables solid review time for students to build on their skills and start a solid foundation for the next school year.

While summer school may sound scary for students, trying the approach of summer academics or summer tutoring might be a great compromise. Offering either option to your child this summer can still give you the desired end results of knowing the learning process will continue through those dreaded summer slide months.  

Resources for Students with Learning Differences

• See The Siena School blog for posts about our multisensory and movement-based curriculum, as well as ideas for at-home work and free time over the summer. 
• See Ann Dolin’s website and YouTube Channel for more resources and tips for avoiding the summer slide. 
• LD Online and the Atlantic Seaboard Dyslexia Education Center (ASDEC) have a wealth of resources for families navigating academics and tutoring needs. 
• Reading Rockets also has good information for finding a tutor for children with dyslexia.