“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”
“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.”
“Sometimes what she speaks is out of this world. But then at most other times, she tends to be very quiet in class”
“We see her often playing with Geoboards while others are playing with many other things”
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.
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.
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")
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?
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.
3. Would you recommend anything we can suggest the teachers to do in the classroom to help DD enjoy the class better?
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.
