The child who is bright but too quiet

[emkana]

what to do about it, other than tell dd, year 5, to speak more?

I was quiet but bright - I used to restrict my answers to 1 or 2 per class to give the others a turn so I didn't appear to be hogging the lesson or being big-headed because I knew something. i knew the answer, the teacher knew I knew, that was enough.
Now dd has had exactly the same situations as your dd, at primary. Aged 15 now, a bit louder, contributes more, but still one of the quieter students - good grades and the teachers all like her. I wouldn't worry (it helped that I worked in the same primary so at parents evening I was basically talking to colleagues which meant they could be quite open with me about it)

Galena - Thank you so much for your comments. You have put my mind at ease. This was the head's comment on my dd(4) report.

My DD is pretty quiet in school, she is very well behaved and does very well academically. She loves learning and looks forward to going to schol. On seeing the Head's comments urging her to speak up more in class I was tempted to mention it to my DD, but instead thought "No, she is doing brilliantly actually. Shedoesn't have a problem". She is 4!

I think us adults see issues and 'problems' where children don't and can sometimes create issues that were not there!!

dd is similar, and in a class where there are very vocal and "lively" children has suffered.

It might help to read this article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator. I've worked with the Myers-Briggs test in a professional capacity and the conclusion is that successful workplaces and successful organisations/groups of people/classes need a mix of all kinds of people, extroverts and introverts. Neither is right or wrong, although our society tends to favour extroverts.

Please don't put pressure on your DD. As others have said, repeated mentions of this issue just made me speak less in class rather than more.

Myers-Briggs - yikes! Are you sure you're not my twin or clone?!!! I remember doing that at a particularly awful team awayday thingy when after the presentation and spiel about how all teams need all types, my head of dept concluded by saying that of course we needed all types, but extroverts were the best type

He was sacked a couple of years later and is now 'freelancing'