October 10, 2025

By Amy Jolly, Head of School

A high-quality junior boarding school offers many advantages for the academic, athletic, artistic, and social development of middle school students, but there are specific, powerful reasons why boarding is a transformative experience for students who struggle with dyslexia:

1. Specialized Instruction: Students benefit strongly from individualized or small-group instruction, Orton-Guillingham tutorials, and explicit, multisensory teaching strategies. This targeted approach helps students make measurable academic gains; faster than in public or traditional day schools. This is particularly important because it is not uncommon for bright dyslexic students to be diagnosed relatively late in their educational journeys or for it to take a long time to obtain appropriate resources within a public school setting. Both factors cause students to end up in the 4th, 5th, or 6th grade with delayed literacy and/or cause students to be frustrated, anxious, or generally not interested in school. Enrolling a dyslexic student in boarding school where the highly-structured, 7x24 nature of the program provides an immersive, intense experience where a student can catch-up to same-age peers. Middle school represents the last window for significant remediation and to acquire the adaptive skills necessary for success in high school and beyond.

2. Integrated Support Throughout the Day: At boarding school, learning doesn't stop at 3 p.m. and staff are trained to support dyslexia in all settings…not just language arts. Study halls, evening tutoring, and teacher check-ins provide consistent reinforcement. At Applewild, our students are not “pulled out” to receive necessary services, but naturally provided in our Language-Based classrooms. Parents often must augment their public school’s program through after-school tutoring. This is time-consuming and exhausting, while living on campus means no commuting stress. 

3. Small Community Size & Individual Attention: In addition to offering low student-to-teacher ratios, because we live together, teachers form deep relationships and understand each student’s learning profile. When taken together, all of this helps dyslexic students feel seen and supported; building both competence and confidence.

4. Focus on Confidence, Advocacy & Life Skills: There is often an emotional impact of dyslexia, and these students frequently struggle with self-esteem and frustration. While Applewild serves both dyslexic and neurotypical (whatever that means!), students, we intentionally set a safe, accepting environment where everyone is working on something. Since our program ends in the 9th grade, all leadership opportunities in our community go to middle school students. The rhythm of boarding school life is full of structured routines that build executive function, independence, and resilience.
5. Immersive Environment for Growth & Belonging: Because students live, learn, and socialize together, they build lasting friendships and they are part of a community that values them as a whole person. This sense of belonging and 24/7 support can be transformative for a dyslexic learner.

Families may choose between 5-day or 7-day residential programs, and those who choose the five-day option retrieve their children on Friday evening and return them by late afternoon on Sundays. With either option, when a student is home, parents can relax and simply enjoy family time. Applewild School’s boarding program is available for students in grades four though nine, and our Foundations program is a powerful school-within-a-school offering Language-Based classrooms accompanied by Orton-Guillinham structured tutorials. Our students profoundly benefit from a structured, sequential, and research-based curriculum that is prescribed to the individual student’s needs. Our Foundations classrooms have eight or less students, and students thrive because they get what they need academically and integrate into the traditional program for arts, music, clubs, all-school meetings, sports, and our dining program. This combination of high-structure and high-nurture allows our Foundations students to flourish. For more information about the Foundations program, click here.