Benjamin Slinkard
Encore Teacher
Benjamin.slinkard@mnps.org
mrslinkardsclass.weebly.com

sometimes, but not always!
• High-energy! Put it to good use!
• Highly sensitive, with strong emotional reactions
• Underachievement, especially with disinterest
• Usually large vocabulary
• Excellent memory
• Interest in doing things differently
• Vivid imaginations and/or daydreams
• Twice-exceptionalities
High anxiety & fixed mindset can lead to… imposter syndrome & underachievement!

to avoid disengagement  from Mary Cay Ricci
Struggle: Student struggles or shows perseverance with a task.
Learning: The student learns something new!
Improvement: The student shows an improvement in effort.
Selection of difficult tasks: When given a choice, the student chooses a more difficult task.
Persistence in the face of setbacks: The student shows persistence when faced with a difficult situation or task.

to avoid disengagement  from Mary Cay Ricci
Instead Of: You are so smart!
Try: You work hard in school & it shows!
Instead Of: Your drawing is wonderful; you are an artist.
Try: I can see you have been practicing your drawing; what a great improvement!
Instead Of: You are a great athlete. You could be the next Pele!
Try: Keep practicing, and you will see great results.
Instead Of: You always get good grades; that makes me happy.
Try: When you put forth effort, it really shows in your grades. You should be so proud of yourself. I am proud of you!

to avoid disengagement  from Stanford University’s Dr. Carol Dweck

watch this with your students

watch this with your younger students
• I can’t do long division… YET!
• For if & when failure happens
• Skills are acquired with time & effort
• Persistence pays off
• Everyone is somewhere on the learning curve!

self talk strategies from Vanderbilt’s Dr. Donna Ford
Instead Of: He can’t do it.
Try: He can do it. He will do it!
Instead Of: That’s good enough for her. That’s all I expected.
Try: Is this her best work? She can do better. I expect & want her to do better.
Instead Of: He is so lazy.
Try: He’s learned poor work habits.
Instead Of: She doesn’t want to learn this.
Try: She has learned to dislike school/reading/math. How can I motivate & interest her?

warm ups  transitions  math stations  early finishers
1. How many different ways can you get to 36?
+, -, x, ÷, fractions, negatives, commutative property…
2. What doesn’t belong?
List 46 numbers on the board, “3, 6, 9, 12”
There is no right answer!
Twodigits, primes, squares, place values, doubles…
3. What’s the question?
Show a photograph & ask students to generate questions.
What question could we ask, even if we don’t know the answer yet?
From Byrdseed

warm ups  transitions  math stations  early finishers
$19.50 on Amazon
EXAMPLES
I left home & arrived at school 45 minutes later. When might I have left home & when might I have arrived at school?
Can you find things that have a greater area than your desk top but not much greater?
In a bag I can feel an object that has flat faces, sharp corners, and straight edges.
What might this object be?

warm ups  transitions  math stations  early finishers

independent work  partners  math stations  small groups
• Shift from solution unknown to [addend] unknown
The Easy Way!
1. Print out the answer key, white out the addends, make copies!
2. Distribute this enriched page to high math achievers
• Allow for error analysis
1. Print out a worksheet with 5-8 questions
(math stories are great! but anything related or review will do)
2. You write the answers, most deliberately wrong with common errors
3. Ask students to analyze what you did incorrectly
4. Require correction & a sentence about what was wrong in each
• Offer choice: “If you need a challenge today, I suggest this activity.”
• Multi-step math stories

a fancy word for mixing it up!
Blocked Practice
Mixed Practice… or INTERLEAVING
• Tells them what to do at the top of the page
• Students might rush without critical thinking
• “Forces students to distinguish between types of problems & decide which strategy is appropriate” -NYT
• Forces CCSS math practice of attending to precision
• Result unknown subtraction, addend unknown addition, graph, money… all on one page
• Cut & paste!
When?
Homework or independent work
Who?
Everyone will benefit! Especially students who rush through work or whose parents say they rip up their homework because it’s too easy

warm ups  transitions  literacy stations  early finishers
1. How many words can you find in [skyscraper]?
Only letters within the words, in any order
2. Ambiguous sentences (For examples, Google syntactic
ambiguity)
“I saw a man on a hill with a telescope”
• There’s a man on a hill, & I’m watching him with my telescope.
• There’s a man on a hill, who I’m seeing, & he has a telescope.
• There’s a man, & he’s on a hill that also has a telescope on it.
• I’m on a hill, & I saw a man using a telescope.

warm ups  transitions  literacy stations  early finishers
Step One: Get two white boards & two white board markers.
Step Two: Select one of the dictionary pages that you are going to fill in with words
– circle one (or make your own):
BAD to BUNK
DEAR to DUNGEON
FANG to FEAR
SACK to SUNK
Step Three: You and your partner race to come up with as many words that you would find on that page!
Step Four: Stop at the same time & check each others’ work. Each correct word gets one point! (It is okay if you both list some of the same words). Erase the words that don’t belong.
Step Five: Combine the words and list them in the alphabetical order they would appear on that dictionary page.
From Understanding Reading Problems: Assessment & Instruction

warm ups  transitions  literacy stations  early finishers
Step One: BEFORE YOU READ YOUR INFORMATIONAL TEXT , make a list of all of the WORDS that you associate with the topic of the text.
Step Two: Organize your words into a web of categories. A few words might not have a category and that’s okay.
Step Three: Read your text!
Step Four: Go back to your category web of words. Can you add any new
WORDS to the categories? Can you add any new CATEGORIES?
Example: Museums
Things in Museums paintings, bones, armor, old things
Workers curator janitor
Real Museums
The Frist
The Met
From Understanding Reading Problems: Assessment & Instruction

use QtA strategies to boost engagement
Recent NPR article: high achievers have to work a little bit harder with CCSS!
"'High-achieving readers were used to reading very quickly through a text, answering a series of comprehension questions, done...' They weren't used to being challenged .”
Questioning the Author (QtA)
What is the author trying to say here?
What do you think the author wants us to know?
What is the author talking about?
Why do you think the author tells us that now?

o nly 31% of children’s books have female protagonists!
1. The Westing Game , by Ellen Raskin (V)
2. A Wrinkle in Time , by Madeleine
L’Engle (W)
3. From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler , by E.L.
Konigsburg (S)
4. The Mysterious Benedict Society , by Trenton Lee Stewart (W)
5. Chasing Vermeer , by Blue Balliett (T)
6. The Mighty Miss Malone , by Christopher Paul Curis (U)
7. Matilda , by Roald Dahl (S)
From Byrdseed

puts responsibility for learning & behavior on students
• Think, pair, share
• Written exit slip or transition slip
“I’m an adult, I know the steps of how to [build a pyramid].
Tell me how it went for YOU.”
• What went well?
• What didn’t go well?
• Was this your best work?
• What would you do differently?
•
How did you work with your partner/group?
These can be planned or unplanned based on observations.

 Byrdseed.com
 Hoagie’s Gifted Education website
 Carol Ann Tomlinson’s books
 Mary Cay Ricci’s Mindsets in the Classroom
 Peter Sullivan’s Good Questions for Math Teaching K-6
 Beck & McKeown’s Improving Comprehension with Questioning the Author