Brothers and sisters are very much part of a child’s life at home and there is evidence that they extend each other’s literacy experiences in important and interesting ways. The impact of siblings on each other’s literacy development was one of the aspects studied in the Elmswood research which Jo Weinberger has described and evaluated in her book Literacy Goes to School. She looked at chil-dren’s literacy development from three to seven years and concentrated on the adult who provided the ‘parent’ as opposed to the ‘school’ perspective on children’s literacy learning. Half of the 60 children in the study had an older brother or sister and during the interviews Weinberger found that there were a number of positive ways in which siblings enriched each other’s literacy. Turning to reading first, younger children benefited from being with their older siblings when they were read to by adults and older siblings quite often enjoyed reading to their younger brothers and sisters. A child with older siblings was also likely to have access to a wider range of books and materials than ‘only’ or firstborn children. Younger children were also involved in writing activity earlier than they might otherwise have been as older children were effectively ‘models’ for writing behaviour. One mother commented that ‘when we help Joanne to write, Sarah pretends to write too…’ (Weinberger, 1996, p. 57). All that we know about early writing suggests that children who see the purposes of writing early are at a considerable advantage in learning to write. Most of the children in the Elmswood study were monolingual. What might be the role of siblings when children are learning to read in a second or additional language? Eve Gregory illuminates the issues here in her book Making Sense of a New World. In Gregory’s research we see a culture of sibling support developing in some families: eleven-year-old Fatima remarks that she was teaching her little brother and sister to read in English just as her older brother had taught her. Gregory comments: ‘Older siblings are excellent “brokers” of a new language because they are able to link school and home reading practices’ (Gregory, 1996, p.
176).
Gregory’s work on the ESRC project ‘Siblings as mediators of literacy in two East London communities (1998–2000)’ provides further evidence of how successful siblings often are as ‘teachers’ of school literacy practices (Gregory, Long and Volk, 2004). In ‘Invisible teachers of literacy’ Gregory (2004) argues that an unspoken collusion sometimes takes place between teacher and older sibling in initiating younger children into literacy. She shares interesting case studies showing what was revealed during ‘play school’ sessions in Bangladeshi British households in East London. For example, there is a transcript showing ten year old Farjana’s poetry lesson at home for her younger sister Hana in which she seems to be imitating what she has learnt from her teacher at school. The older child takes up a teacherly role and form of language. For example she says: ‘Now we are going to do a short poem and memorise it’ and, on looking at Hana’s poem, ‘Good. But I’m sorry to say I didn’t say it doesn’t have to rhyme...’.
Are there any disadvantages, from the literacy point of view, as a result of being a younger child? It is possible that some parents are not able to give younger children the quality and amount of time that they gave to their eldest child and that this may have had an effect on their literacy development. Older children may also encourage distractions away from literacy – like watching television and playing computer games. In the Elmwood study the positive aspects of the contribution of older siblings seemed to outweigh the possible negative ones. Perhaps the most enjoyable context in which help was given was when older children read out loud to younger ones.
Gregory, Eve (1996) Making Sense of a New World: Learning to read in a second language London: Paul Chapman.
Gregory, E., Long, S. and Volk, D. (eds) (2004) Many Pathways to Literacy: Early learning with siblings, grandparents, peers and communities London: Routledge.
Gregory, E. (2004) ‘Invisible teachers of literacy’ in Literacy, UKLA, 38(2).
Weinberger, Jo (1996) Literacy Goes to School London: Paul Chapman.
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