Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Pre-school disappointment, advice, thoughts (2E?)

DD3 goes to a pre-school where she has been for the most part happy. She complains that sometimes the other kids do not let her play with them. I have seen them be a bit exclusionary but for the most part its okay. DD does have something up although to young to decide what it is. She has had numerous dx from failure to thrive at the beginning, hypotonia, apraxia, potential mild CP and currently we have a new OT who thinks it maybe a sensory processing issue with some praxis. We had a full Autism evaluation done just before she was 3. She is slow to get dressed etc., does not really like to use her hands and though she can type a few words on the computer she can only make one letter (i). The pre-school is known amongst some of the parents of gifted kids to be good for gifties. Prior to placing her in the pre-school, I informed the teacher that she knew her ABC's upper case and lower case and all the sounds, her numbers etc. They give a pretty stupid evaluation test to all the students about two months into placement. The teacher told me that she was surprised about how my child did on the test. Her response being dramatic as she is a bit dramatic, "ohh the child can talk". SOoo Recently she has been obsessed with reading. She took in a Dick and Jane book because she wanted to read it to one of her friends. I informed the teacher that it was there as I was hoping for a bit of help on facilitating this current obsession. Well the teacher told me after that she had the book memorized and that she needed to learn her letters both upper case and lower case. She gave me this paper with capital letters on one side and lower case letters on the other. I took the teacher by the hand, over to DD and pointed to a few of the letters on the lower case side assuming that was the harder side and asked DD the name and sound of the letter. I am upset about this. I feel lost and scared and alone other than my husband. My husband is fantastically supportive, yet both of us lost. I think part of it is that if you watch my child with some of the issues she has, I think you could make an assumption in regards to her intelligence. I think I expected more. I do not really know what to do. I have started to do the pre-school shop around...and wonder if I should try and talk to them or just find another place to be. DD has been complaining about boredom recently. I think there was a place for my kiddo to "shine". She is not running around the playground and up and down the slides. But she could connect with these children on another level and read them a story. She seems to enjoy that as she requested to take the book again. I am concerned about exposing this skill in this environment now. Any ideas or suggestions or been there's would be really helpful....

Since my daughter is very shy, I stayed to observe her for a couple of hours on her first day of preschool (Montessori). The first thing the teacher did after introducing herself was to invite my DD to color at the table. While my daughter (not quite 3 at the time) was coloring, the teacher reached over and drew a 7 on my daughter's paper, and asked her if she knew what it was. My daughter told her it was a seven. The teacher grabbed some beads and some flash cards, and asked my daughter to count the beads and indicate the matching flash card (1-9). DD made a couple of counting errors (she's used to being able to move items individually as she counts them, while the beads are stuck together). If she hadn't made those errors, I assume the teacher would have tested her on addition/subtraction (where she would have failed all but the simplest test). After counting, the teacher checked to see if my daughter knew 0 and 10 from the flashcards.

At any rate, it literally took less than 30 minutes for the teacher to zero-in on my daughter's numeracy level in a low-stress, and unassuming way. I decided I didn't even need to give the teacher the document I had written detailing my daughter's abilities. She just didn't need it.

DD has been there less than a month now, and she told me today that she wishes we had the easy readers her school has. Apparently she's been reading things slightly more advanced at school than what we have at home (we're going to the library soon to remedy this.)

I wasn't there to witness how they discovered my daughter's literacy level, but it seems they figured it out within the first few weeks (possibly within the first few days).

My daughter doesn't have any 2E considerations, but she is shy, and she does sometimes amuse herself by purposely giving wrong answers.

If the teacher was unable to correctly assess my daughter's abilities after months, I would definitely consider taking DD out of that class. Any learning that happens with a teacher that doesn't know the student's abilities is just dumb luck, and that isn't worth paying a premium for (I have cheaper alternatives, but send my daughter to this school because I expect them to facilitate her pace of learning).

I would definitely investigate your alternatives.

Nice story...wow wish I could find that! I am going on a tour of a Montessori school tomorrow. My concern with the Montessori approach has to do with letting the kids lead. My kiddo will avoid all the fine motor skill stuff...I have been looking at schools that are a bit more structured and have a daily routine of fine motor incorporated into their activities. My older DD hated pre-school and I just suffered through as the one we were at was the best I could find. This DD does not complain so I am not sure what to make of that. Really liked your story...sounds pleasant.