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Our DD4 has recently had a big jump in reading. She reads children's books to us at night and likes to read to family and friends. She also reads chapter books with help. She is in preschool. We asked her if she reads the books at school and she said those books were not for kids to read they were for the teacher. She also told us that 4 year olds don't read. She refuses to read anything at school, even things she knows and dose not want her friends or teacher to know she can read. I am very concerned that she tends to hide her abilities at such a young age. How can I encourage her to be herself and be proud of how she is. I am worried that the teacher said something to her or maybe another child. Sometimes I think I should just keep her home. But everyone says she needs to learn social skills and meet other kids.

My DD is 4.5 and when she was 3 in preschool she had a very similar experience. She, however, stopped doing things at home, too, for a while -not just reading. We found that she didn't really "socialize" in school and spent most of her time in solitary endeavors, because the other kids didn't understand her and it was just better that way. (Her words paraphrased). We decided not to re-enroll her once the semester ended and it took about 9 months for her to get (mostly) back to being her old self.

Now we are part of a homeschooling group and she meets with and plays with a variety of children. The chance to play with a bunch of different types of kids, and meet different people, has helped her come out of her shell. While a preschool classroom certainly contains different personalities, there's a different element when an assortment of settings are included along with different ages and abilities.

In other words, "keeping her home" won't harm her abilities to meet other people and learn important social skills. She'll be able to do it in a real world setting and will have you as her primary role model, instead of learning from other 4 year olds who are also learning these skills. There is no law saying that a child must go to preschool. Unless you *truly* feel that she'll be deriving some benefit from going to preschool, why continue to send her when the experience is teaching her that it isn't okay to be herself?

If you need ideas for things to do at home, start a play and/or homeschool group, etc. please freel free to send me an e-mail. (I used to run a large parenting group 200+ families and now co-organize two homeschool groups ~130 families.)

Mizzou

Hi, I would have two suggestions, don't push she'll do things at her own pace and I would talk to the teacher to get a feel on her class room skills and if it matches what you want for your daughter. Regarding social skills both my daughters (4 & 5 years) have not been in any type of pre-school they stayed home with me, I put them in dance, ice skating, swimming ect... both are very social, confident little girls. I follow their lead on what they want to learn, so my 5 year old entered K with no classroom experience within two months the teacher was suggesting a grade skip, turns out she's reading at a 5th grade level Wish you the best, she's going to keep you busy!

I concur with skylersmommy about talking with the teacher. I would specifically ask her if anything's happened to make your DD feel like it's not OK to read in the class. If it turns out your teacher is somehow behind this, then you'll want to run away fast. I think the early teachers do have a lot of influence on our little ones, as in "if mrs. so and so said it, it's true!" Maybe you could ask the teacher if there could be some times when she asks your DD to read something, either to her or to the class.

I think speaking with the teacher is a great idea, however, I would also see if there was a way to observe your daughter in the classroom without her knowing you were there. When my daughter was in preschool parents could observe through a one-way mirror class interaction, as well as arrange to join the class. This allowed us to observe what was happening without the teacher(s) and/or students adjusting their behaviors for guests.

Even if the teacher is supportive, it's important to get a feel for social aspect of her classroom. What I mean is that a supportive teacher isn't enough if your daughter is receiving the message from her peers that she is "different and different is bad", on a regular basis. This could be a direct result of teasing, etc. or just based on your daughter's own observations. And ask yourself, if you are confident that regardless of the reason the teacher, school administrators, etc. can find a solution that will help your daughter. If not, then I'd go back and review your other options.

Thanks for the responses. I talked with DDs teacher and she was really supportive! She said they were having problems with a particular child and they would keep a close eye on the situation.

The class room is very play based, and the activities are open ended enough for DD to do as much or little as she wants with stuff. The peer interactions were a little more of an issue, but the teacher seems aware of it.

DD is excited to go to preschool and said she wants to go every day. I am hoping that if we keep her engaged at home and her confidence in her own skills increases things will be fine.

I also will follow up with the teacher in a couple weeks, and the teacher said she would let me know if there are problems.

DD is reading to lots of different adults and siblings now at home and seems to be gaining more confidence in herself after we talked to her about it and I went to her class.