Article summary with “Because If You Don’t Put the Top on, It Will Spill”: A Longitudinal Study of Sibling Teaching in Early Childhood by Howe a.o. - 2016

What is this article about?

The summarized article is about how siblings are involved in teaching and learning of the other sibling’s part. Children’s social-cognitive development is influenced and facilitated within their relationships with significant others, of which relationships with siblings are also a part, even though this field is not completely researched yet. The already existing literature states that natural sibling teaching is a natural cognitive activity for children. Older siblings often teach their younger siblings in a semi structural manner, teaching what they just learned from adults. In order to research more in this field, a longitudinal study, researching about naturalistic sibling teaching was conducted and reported in this article.

What is the relationship between teaching and learning?  

In the collaborative model of teaching by Rogoff, it is stated that a teacher guides their less informed learner and builds a bridge between the known and unknown information, while promoting an active involvement of the learner. From this point of view, teaching is a bidirectional relationship and process, with teacher and learner being active parts. It is important for the teacher to be aware of the knowledge and skill level of the learner, whereas the learner has to respect the teacher’s knowledge and skills.

How can a sibling relationship be seen in the context of teaching and learning?

A sibling relationship is unique due to their reciprocal and complementary characteristics. Usually, older siblings are the ones giving direct and control interactions, even though younger siblings can take over the teaching part as well.

Sibling Teaching During Semi Structured Tasks

In a semi-structered task, older siblings teach their younger siblings something they were taught from an adult. How older siblings teach depends on their developmental stage. Preschoolers often demonstrate while teaching, whereas older children focus more on verbal instructions. The older the younger siblings are, the more involved and active they are in the teaching and give more feedback.

Naturalistic Sibling Teaching

In naturalistic teaching, older children teach younger children during play context by using a range of strategies, such as scaffolding, explanation and demonstration, with increasing teaching skills.

What has been researched in the current study?

This study focused on teaching frequency, strategies and learner involvement in a longitudinal study. First with children at the age of 2 and 4 years (T1), and a follow up assessment two years later (T2). Additionally, the teaching of the first- and second borns at the same age (at the age of 4) were compared and important learner characteristics were examined.

How was the study conducted and the data measured?

40 middle-class Canadian families participated with their children in the study. They were observed six times, 90 minutes each. The children were asked to play while pretending the observer was not present. After the observations, the transcripts were screened for direct or indirect teaching scenes and coded.

What are the results of this study and what do they mean?

Throughout the study, children showed a frequent naturalistic sibling-directed teaching during family interactions. Older siblings taught more at both measurement points, but younger siblings taught progressively more over the course of time suggesting a developmental change. Older siblings took the main role in teaching. This study did not reveal significant differences in gender when it comes to siblings teaching. Overall, it was more likely of the teacher, as younger and as older children, to initiate the teaching sequence, rather than the learner asking for it. In the second measurement, the older siblings responded more to a teaching request than in the first measurement. Those findings support the idea that teaching is dependent on the knowledge gap between learner and teacher, rather than on the teacher’s authority status. Furthermore, results of this study showed that the children’s teaching strategies increased with age. Instruction and demonstrating were the most common used teaching strategies among older and younger siblings. These findings align with previous studies, stating that teaching strategies are adjusted to the learners and cognitive skills and knowledge of both. Due to teaching and learning being a bidirectional process, the learner's response was also determined by the teacher's strategies. Most learners responded by either ignoring or complying, rather than actively seeking for teaching and being involved in it.