LD Resources

Sanford Shapiro looks at The Hamilton School at Wheeler
© 2005 Sanford Shapiro

The Hamilton School is a “school-within-a-school” near Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Hamilton shares facilities and resources with the Wheeler School, a more traditional mainstream and older (1889) school.

This “school within a school” model is unique amongst schools for kids with learning disabilities and it (the model) provides some unique opportunities. As a result of this structure, transition from a “specialized remedial program” to a more mainstream classroom environment can occur in creative ways. When appropriate, a Hamilton student can have flexible programming and take a class at Wheeler, usually math, while continuing to access the small group instruction and diagnostic/prescriptive teaching strategies at Hamilton. Students from both schools join together to take art, drama and pe classes. Considering the possibility that some dyslexic students have innate and/or developing visual thinking/processing skills, such classes can be opportunities for them to hold their own or even shine.

Generally speaking, Hamilton kids have language-based learning disabilities such as dyslexia, struggling with the mechanics of language, including difficulties with production speed and other “output issues.” They are likely to need less intensive language remediation than say a Landmark kid and consequently do not receive any 1-1 tutorials (though groups are small, six-eight). According to John Green, the head of the Hamilton at Wheeler program, though the primary diagnosis of their students is dyslexia, many of the kids also have difficulties with attention, organization and executive processing.

Another illustration of how the school-within-a-school model works, is that the head of the Hamilton program is part of the administrative team of the overall Wheeler School. As such he and his team are not as subject to the more insular working environment of a completely homogeneous school environment. There exists options for different types of faculty collaboration; one Hamilton teacher is head of a department at Wheeler. Again, instead of stigma and being “less than or so different from,” kids and faculty mingle and learn from each other. A highlight and tradition at the Wheeler School is the yearly “LD Awareness Weeks.” During this two-week time period there are workshops and speakers that promote awareness of learning style issues. Some years back I was invited to be one of the speakers, presenting on college selection for kids with LD, and I experienced first-hand the ease with which faculty, parents and kids from both schools participated. In addition, they were doing this type of presentation and promotion before it was fashionable!

Hamilton has their elementary students (grades 1through 5) in a separate but adjacent building. The middle school students (6th, 7th and 8th graders) take their classes in the main Wheeler School building. Hamilton has been in operation for eighteen years and the middle school program was added within the past six years. Orton Gillingham is a cornerstone of the instructional approach and all teachers are O-G trained. However, other approaches also multi-sensory and research-based are used.

From this visit and from my experience with Hamilton over the years, I have a sense that they not only tackle the remedial needs of its students but also help kids experience their gifts and talents as well. The Aerie program, for example, which students from both Hamilton and Wheeler take, is an enrichment class that grew out of the Gifted and Talented program. It is a more thematic and experiential class, where higher-level thinking and learning are accentuated without putting high demand on reading and writing output.

Related at this site: The Hamilton School at Wheeler