Anyone can code, and as parents and educators, we need to be ready, willing, and able to help our kids that want to learn to code for their future’s sake and ours.
When a child expresses an interest in learning to code, it can be intimidating for a parent or educator that doesn’t really know what coding is. How do our kids learn so much so fast these days, right? We remember playing with paper airplanes in our backyards, but our children are flying drones. We installed dial up internet, and now our kids can create their own computers and robots.
In order to set our children up for success, it’s important not to discount the role of technology in their lives. Take comfort in finding out that your child wants to learn to code because it can be the starting point of a bright educational path that leads to opportunities and lucrative career options for them later in life.
However, you don’t have to wait to find out that you have a baby genius on your hands to start cultivating a love of coding and open up that path for your child. There are ways to help facilitate the process for their young minds.
To start with, it’s important to know what coding is yourself so you can better help a child understand it. Your knowledge doesn’t have to be in-depth to be supportive. A basic understanding is sufficient.
Next, we want to start young. They say if you can read, then you can code. Learning how to encourage a love of coding early on can really help open a child’s mind to the world around them.
It’s also great to know the benefits of learning to code. Understanding the benefits can help you offer encouragement when a child hits a hurdle.
Lastly, knowing how you can help as the child progresses through the world of coding can make you an invaluable part of that child’s path to a bright future. You can be instrumental in helping them avoid frustrations, learn from their mistakes, and lead them to an enjoyable field of logic-driven problem solving with a healthy dose of creativity as well.
Coding takes a computer’s language and submits instructions to the computer in a way that the computer can follow, understand, and execute. The language is known as a programming language, and there are many programming languages out there, including JavaScript, Lua, HTML, CSS, and more. These work on different platforms, from Python to Scratch to Unity and everything in between, and across operating systems like Mac, PC, and Android. However, they all do the same thing, which is give information and instruction to computers.
People who know how to use a coding language to create these instructions are known as programmers. We utilize the codes they create to do so many tasks, from searching a topic to shopping online to playing video games.
If you don’t know the name of something, how can you articulate that you want to learn how to do it? For example, at a hockey game, a young child is unlikely to say, “I want to learn how to operate the Zamboni” if they’ve never heard the word “Zamboni.” They’re more likely to cry out that they want to “ride the ice” or something adorably incorrect. Whatever the case, we’re likely to encourage their interest and their love of hockey, right?
Coding, for many children, isn’t a word they just know. But, they can tell you they’re interested in learning how to code in other ways. As parents and educators, we just have to know what to listen for.
Coding is such a big part of the behind-the-scenes functionality of our world now that even adults might not know that what they want to learn is coding. But, just as you’re never too old to learn to code, your child’s probably not too young to learn code either.
If you’ve ever had a child tell you that they’d love to create their own video games one day, you know a child that wants to learn to code. If a child has tons of questions about how their favorite app does what it does, your child’s mind is probing at coding. If you have a child who thinks robots are the coolest and really wants to make their own robot someday, you have a child interested in coding. If your child has a love for design and always wants to build new worlds through art, graphic design, or blocks, you have a child who would love to code. The same goes for a child interested in video games and really wants to design their own games. Interest in puzzles, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and game design can all show real-world applications for code lessons and programming courses.
Listening for these clues, following a child’s interests, and understanding the basic core concepts of coding can help you identify a child who is apt to find a love of coding with the right instruction. You can start the foundation for coding as early as five years old, so by the time the child can read, they are ready to code.
If your child wants to be a writer, you don’t start with “Baby’s First Novel.” Writing begins with learning the alphabet. In order for your child to be the next Katherine Johnson, they have to learn numbers and counting before they become a mathematician.
Coding follows that same path. Before your child can grow up to be a successful computer programmer with an impressive and somewhat intimidating vocabulary of technical jargon, they need to learn basic coding concepts.
At some point in our own education, we learned algorithms, which is just the instruction of steps that it takes to achieve an end result. We learned debugging and sequencing, but it looked more like spotting the picture (the step) that’s out of order or wrong. We learned loops with our own video games and by discussing routines that occur every day. Coding concepts are all around us as children.
The only thing stopping us from realizing our coding potential as children is not being told that that’s what we’re doing and not learning the programming languages to implement the concepts into our own computers and make our own creations. Imagine your confidence if you had known that you were a computer programmer at age 7.
Imagine a world full of people who learned at an early age that they had the ability to do the complex work that makes all of the screens in our lives come to life. STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) jobs are going to be on the rise in the decades ahead, and teaching our kids how to code now can set them on that path.
The world will need our children, and if we can give them the confidence to take it on now, we’re ensuring a better tomorrow for them. So, how can we help them?
You can stimulate a child’s coding experience more easily than you might think. Here’s how:
Math and science are needed to code. This is a given. Problem-solving is essential. Sure. But, coding is also all about creativity. So much of the world that we enjoy comes from creative coding.
Coding gives life to what we love in the form of drawings and animation to video games and robots. Even the apps we love to play with on our phones while we’re relaxing are works of creativity through coding.
It’s likely that your child already loves to create things. Their minds are always working and imagining new things. Coding is just another avenue for their creativity to flow. Keep it fun and engaging.
Like one child loves to draw and paint, the next may hate that and prefer to stack legos. No matter what your child loves, coding gives them an opportunity to create anything they can imagine, from coding storytelling and adventure games to creating cool designs. It’s a creative way to play that’s tailored to their dreams.
Exploring isn’t just about turning the next corner or journeying to distant lands. We can teach our kids that exploration is also about testing our limits. Asking the what-if questions and finding out the answers.
A good coder asks those what-if questions, and encouraging your students to try new things can be the key to their success as an incredible programmer someday.
Give them safe, age-appropriate opportunities to test their limits and see what works. Remember, it’s important to have fun, so throwing them to the programming language wolves can backfire on you. Instead, letting them learn from a program that’s suited to their age is best.
Coding is a great tool for the creation of all sorts of programs. If you encourage students to pursue coding projects that tie into the things they already like, it can keep them from being turned off of coding in the first place because they don’t think it speaks to their interests.
Teach them to speak their interests into their coding, at their own pace. Your star reader can create a web page of her latest book reviews. Your Lego fan can design robots and programs to give them operations to perform. The gamer in the class can design a game that sees their favorite animal brought to life.
Don’t let coding intimidate you. You already know more coding concepts than you realize, and your child does too. We can learn, identify younger kids and beginners who will love to code, teach basic concepts, and encourage their growth and development in coding. Celebrate your child’s achievements in computer programming, web development, and computer science with online coding classes that will stay with them every step of the way, on their own schedule.
There’s no dream too big for your child, and there’s no problem too big that it can’t be broken down into manageable pieces. Coding can teach them that both of those statements are true, and it can empower them to create change in the world around them for the better.
Sources:
