Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Managing Preschool classroom challenges

DD is 3Y5M and attends Pre-K3 class at a local preschool. She's been in class for 5 months, and we already hear her teachers complain about what they think are her not-like-other-kids traits.

Here are a few of their observations, and my comments on what DD actually does.

�When we are reading a book, the whole class listens, but she appears distracted and sometimes goes on to play something else independently on her own�

- The fact is, DD is not interested in reading any fiction book. She loves books which are fact-oriented. As of this morning, her current obsession is on �Solar flares� and keeps asking us to read with her the "Sun" pages in National Geographic Kids First Big Book of Space. She�s also been asking questions a lot during the past few days about Gravity, about why everything would float in moon and fall on earth, asking if she holds her Helium Balloon by the thread would she also float up, and has been making a claim that there is hot water deep inside Mars. I guess you got the general idea. While the teacher predominantly reads preschool stories in class � which all the other kids in the class seem to enjoy, DD chooses to ignore it.

�She sometimes appears lost in thoughts, and we at times need to repeat instructions to make her return to this world and listen to us. Might be slow processing power.�

- DD does Daydream. We see it at home, where she would gaze randomly into nothing in particular and remain in that state for several seconds. I know this could be a known trait in Gifted Children, but I�m lost on how to explain that to her teacher. Or what measures we could suggest the teacher to take to address it in the most appropriate way.

�Sometimes what she speaks is out of this world. But then at most other times, she tends to be very quiet in class�

- DD has an advanced vocabulary, she could speak all the alphabets and 1-20 in sequence at 17 months old, and at 22 months was speaking compound and grammatically correct sentences. And has very good memory. While at home, she could be highly energetic (or even hyperactive at times), loves to argue based on logic and fact, loves to ask an avalanche of questions (�What happens if I jump very high on Earth?� �I want to talk about Bat in the night time and Bird in the day time�) � she chooses not to do any of that at school.

�We see her often playing with Geoboards while others are playing with many other things�

- She seems to have developed an intense interest in Geoboards. When we saw her play with it at school, we got one for her at home as well � and she continues to spend long times on it, making different shapes connecting the rubber bands on the Geoboard. While she usually tends to quickly get frustrated when things don�t fit or connect well with her other toys, she would literally spend several patient minutes working through the rubber bands. Even when they splat into her tiny fingers, she�s intensely patient and keeps connecting it making different shapes and imaging scenarios with it.

The teachers indicate the above as traits where DD may be lagging behind others in the class. My questions are �

1. What is the best way to explain her behavior to the teachers � and the fact that DD is not really �lagging behind�, but just has unique interests and capabilities not on par with rest of the children in the class.

2. The teachers are not trained on Giftedness. DD is too little for a formal psychological assessment � but all her traits that we�ve observed since her infant days (including her emotional intensities, perfectionism, sleeping less than her peers etc) seem to indicate a possibility of Giftedness. So, given that we�ve not done any formal assessment at this age, Is it advisable to open up the term �Giftedness� with the teachers and talk to them about it?

3. Would you recommend anything we can suggest the teachers to do in the classroom to help DD enjoy the class better?

Teachers may be trained to observe/screen for possible signs of learning disabilities or learning differences. Disengagement, distractability, living in one's head, lost in thoughts, staring into space, not communicating as expected can be indicators. A child who is gifted with high intelligence may also have LDs... this is known as twice exceptional or 2e. The book "Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses" may be of interest. Brief SENG overview here.

1. You have observed some of the same behaviors which the teachers have noted, however you understand/interpret them differently. You may wish to share with the teachers the positive academic/intellectual milestones you have observed in your child. Be sure to keep a log or record of these milestones. You might choose to use select portions of your collected documentation for future advocacy.

2. You may wish to share:
- that some of your child's interests and achievements/milestones may indicate a high IQ, although that has not yet been confirmed by a formal assessment.
- to learn more about the special learning needs of high IQ children, teachers may join the free Davidson Educators Guild.

3. We don't really know from your post that your child is not enjoying the class... just that her behavior is not as expected. A few ideas:
- It may be possible for a teacher to ask the class to raise hands to vote on which book will be read aloud.
- The teacher might also ask children to suggest how they as a class should behave while a story is read.
- The teacher might engage your child gently in private conversation, asking:
- - what she likes about the geoboard, and/or
- - what she is thinking, and/or
- - what other toys she might like to play with, and/or
- - what books she might prefer to read, etc.

What you are describing is a child who has quite complex, fascinating and high-level stuff going on in her head - while surrounded by quite simple, not-terribly-interesting, low-level stuff. Is it any wonder she's choosing to spend more time in her head? If she generally has difficulty engaging with people and other environments, then you might have some red flags, but if it is just at school, then I would look first to a mismatch between the school and her needs before assuming anything might be wrong with the child herself.

As for talking with her teachers - well, sigh. That can be tough. It's a rare teacher who is willing and able to accept even the possibility of giftedness and three-year-old in the same sentence. I would tend to avoid the "G" word. Instead, I think you said it nicely: "DD is not really “lagging behind”, but just has unique interests and capabilities not on par with rest of the children in the class." Ever so very gently and politely, help them see what you see: the kinds of books she can't get enough of, the activities, discussions and people she *will* engage with, and how these are different from her classroom. Allow them to draw the conclusion themselves, if possible, that she can and does apply all the skills they don't see, when the content/ activity is a better fit for her.

They never really seem to launch into an elaborate fact-filled conversation, while such an elaborate conversation is something DD enjoys. DW and I frequently indulge in such long conversations with DD, and often DD pads it with sequences of "Why"s.

I can so relate DD with this. When embarking on a new task, she needs her time to assess the environment, new objects of play, people around her and what they are doing in the context of her task etc. Once she's through with that exercise, then she gets more comfortable proceeding with the task.

She's an entirely different person at home. Her plays at home are mostly interest-led, rather than regimen-led. While school is mostly regimen-led, and DD doesn't always want to do what the rest of her class is being asked to do at a given point in time. She ends up choosing to do something else, and plays in her mind.

The WPPSI IV can be given as young as 2:6 I think and kids can be usefully evaluated in the 3s. We had DS tested in when he was mid 3s and it was very helpful.

Preschool teachers for kids younger than preK tend to focus on social skills and motor skills, not academics. Each example you give here seems to about your daughter withdrawing from the class. I'm sure the preschool teachers feel that she is "lagging behind" by not joining the group. This is completely different from lagging behind academically.

My youngest at that age also got the critique -- well meaning of course -- from his preschool teacher that he didn't interact with other children, only adults. This "problem" solved itself as his peers became more verbal and able to play more interesting games.


We have never tried to explain our kids to teachers, particularly not in preschool. We took to heart what teachers say but always placed it in the context of our child. We knew our boy played lots with kids, as long as they were older, so we felt no need to address his teacher's "concerns" about him not playing with agemates.

Are her teachers proposing anything, intervention or something, that you disagree with? Was this brought up as a problem that needed to be addressed or observations to explain what they are working on with your child? ("We're trying to get little Suzy more involved with the class because we see ..." versus "Little Suzy needs one-to-one support or extra social skills")



As a previous poster pointed out, you could get a formal assessment, but I encourage you to consider the precise goals of the assessment before beginning. The same with bringing up giftedness, with or without formal test results.

For the school year before preK (in which the child turns 4), with my older son we did not discuss giftedness beforehand, and with my younger son we did. Both experiences turned out positive, as it was quite clear the level my older son was working on, and the school was familiar enough with my older son to take me seriously when I spoke to them early about my younger son.

Still, consider why you want to bring up giftedness. In our case it was so that our youngest son could get reading books in school, which my older son didn't get at that age. Youngest son has just turned 4 and is exceedingly happy that he can have books from school; there is no other "differentiation" or special program for him. Our school is play, so the only thing we accomplished was getting reading books sent home. Be aware of what you hope to accomplish.


Open-ended toys. If the preschool doesn't have large play areas that allow for creativity, good outdoor spaces, art suppliers at child's height, and open-ended toys like blocks for building, I'd look for another school or keep her home.