‘Infinity Means it Goes on Forever’: Siblings' Informal Teaching of Mathematics

Abstract

Sibling-directed teaching of mathematical topics during naturalistic home interactions was investigated in 39 middle-class sibling dyads at two time points. At time 1 (T1), siblings were 2 and 4 years of age, and at time 2 (T2), siblings were 4 and 6 years of age. Intentional sequences of sibling-directed mathematical teaching were coded for (i) topics (e.g., number), (ii) contexts (e.g., play with materials/toys), and (iii) type of knowledge (conceptual and procedural). Siblings engaged in teaching number, geometry, and measurement at T1 and demonstrated preliminary evidence of teaching of grouping, relations, and operations at T2. Regarding context, at T1, mathematical teaching occurred most frequently during play with materials/toys, while at T2, games with rules were prominent. Teaching of conceptual or procedural knowledge varied over time and by topic and context. Findings are discussed in light of recent work on understanding children's mathematical knowledge as it develops in the informal family context. Copyright

“I'll Show You How to Write My Name”: The Contribution of Naturalistic Sibling Teaching to the Home Literacy Environment

“…Similarly, an older sibling named the color of a crayon by stating, “This color is orange.” Siblings also played with language at T1 (phonological awareness), as evidenced by turning their names into alliterative phrases (e.g., “Sandy sew” became “Bandy bow”) and rhyming (e.g., “ Cats and hats ”). Thus, in line with previous work on sibling teaching (Howe, Adrien, et al., ; Howe, Della Porta, et al., ; Maynard, , ), even at T1, these very young siblings capitalized on their social interactions (Rogoff, , ; Vygotsky, ) to engage in teaching each other language and literacy concepts.…”

“…When both older and younger siblings were age 4 (older sibling at T1, younger sibling at T2), no significant birth order differences were evident in the concepts they taught; overall, vocabulary teaching occurred significantly more often than all other language and literacy topics. We had expected that older, more knowledgeable siblings might display a wider range of topics at T1, but given the age of the younger siblings (2 years old), perhaps this influenced the older siblings’ teaching (Azmitia & Hesser, ; Howe, Adrien, et al., ; Strauss & Ziv, ). We speculate that this finding could be due to two possible explanations: (1) The language skills of the younger siblings at T2 may have been more advanced compared with their older siblings at the same age at T1 (Howe et al., ), or conversely, (2) at T1, the older siblings may have appeared less advanced because, much like parentese, they tailored their teaching to their sibling partners who were only age 2 (e.g., Dunn, ; Dunn & Kendrick, ).…”

“…However, younger siblings were proportionally more likely to teach at T2 than T1, which was partly associated with older siblings being more likely to request teaching from younger siblings at T2 (Howe, Della Porta, et al., ). A preliminary content analysis of the topics that siblings taught each other at T1 and T2 revealed two domains of primary interest: mathematics (Howe, Adrien, et al., ) and language and literacy, which forms the basis of the current report. In particular, our preliminary findings provide an opportunity to examine whether theoretical conceptions of the home literacy environment would benefit from a wider definition than just focusing on parent–child exchanges and relevant materials (Hamilton et al., ), as some of the literature subsequently reviewed would appear to indicate.…”

“…One early study documented that first‐born, school‐age siblings in female pairs engaged in the most teaching during naturalistic ongoing interaction at home (Stoneman, Brody, & MacKinnon, ), whereas Mayan children were observed teaching younger siblings about domestic and cultural tasks (e.g., cooking) during play (Maynard, , ; Rabain‐Jamin, Maynard, & Greenfield, ). In a series of studies, Howe and colleagues (; Howe, Adrien, et al., ; Howe, Della Porta, Recchia, & Ross, ) also investigated naturally occurring sibling teaching and children's use of a variety of sophisticated strategies in a short‐term longitudinal study at time 1 (T1; ages 2 and 4) and again at time 2 (T2; ages 4 and 6). These 39 sibling dyads and parents from lower and middle class, English‐speaking, Caucasian, Canadian families were observed in six 90‐minute sessions at each timepoint; families were free to engage in naturalistic ongoing interactions with one another.…”

“…As noted previously (Howe, Della Porta, et al., ), in a two‐year longitudinal study, siblings ages 2 and 4 (T1) and ages 4 and 6 (T2) were observed for six 90‐minute sessions at each timepoint (12 observations in total) during naturalistic exchanges in the home. Intentional teaching sequences were identified from transcripts of the sessions (Howe, Adrien, et al., ; Howe, Della Porta, et al., ; Howe et al., ). In the present study, a content analysis of the teaching sequences identified those involving language and literacy, which were then coded for eight specific language and literacy concepts.…”