GIVE YOUR KID A HEAD START: HOW TO TEACH YOUR KIDS PROGRAMMING

Regardless of what seems to be your child’s potential career path, learning to code is a vital skill they need to stay ahead of the curve, especially in this technology-driven world. Programming teaches your kids critical analytical, problem-solving, creativity and communication skills. Besides the skills your children learn along the way, it can be very fun and is a good way to channel their energies.

Most accomplished geniuses began honing their skills at very young ages. When your kids are introduced to programming at a young age, it’s hard to imagine the awesome apps and tools they will develop when they are much older.

When teaching your kids programming, it’s imperative you make it as fun and exciting as possible because at say 7-10 years old, they are a bit too young to understand “if-then” statements. Excellent apps and games are available today to engage their curiosity and teach them the fundamentals through exploration and play. In other words, the best way to teach kids is through play.

Most schools have begun incorporating programming classes into their curriculum. However, as a concerned parent, you can’t leave everything at the hands of their teachers; you have to do your part.

Below are proven techniques, app, and methods recommended for parents to teach their kids to code:

• PROGRAMMING GAMES- Games are a good way to teach kids of all ages how to program and for very young children of 5-6, they are perfect. Games available to teach kids programming are centered more on animation and graphics than the actual code itself. Although a large number of these games are built for kids eight years and older, if your kid can read, understand cause and effect, and motivated, you can introduce these games even to pre-K learners.

Codemoji has games built to utilize emojis and tools which your kids are already familiar with to teach them programming.

• GRAPHICAL TOOLS- These tools are an upgrade from simple, single character manipulation apps. They are designed to teach programming through simple drag-and-drop interfaces with coding blocks. These graphical tools give your kids an opportunity to pull in code parts by manipulating more than one object so they can access newer events, variables, and commands to create games or animations.

• MORE ROBUST CODING TOOLS- Beyond these simple games and drag-and-drop styled tools, there are more apps which focus more on the code itself and visualizing their workings. Most of these tools are ideal for older kids and adults interested in learning to code in a bit less technical ways.

Codemoji makes coding as easy as texting. Its system eliminates pesky code syntax and typing hurdles and focuses on instinctive, relatable emoji that represent and function as standard in CSS and HTML code.

The MIT App Inventor is a modern coding tool which fits this category. If they are already familiar with drag-and-drop themed tools, this app is the perfect transition. Also, it includes a simple method, function and other coding elements you might use to create an android app.

Code Academy and Khan Academy are interactive online tools which are more suited for older kids (13 and above). They are one of the best ways for kids to learn to code as they can see the changes take effect on the split screen. Khan Academy’s coding environment utilizes JavaScript. Code Academy teaches JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, web fundamentals and more.

• BOOKS ON CODING FOR KIDS - There are books on programming written specifically for kids. Python is a good starting point for learning specific coding languages, and there are several books available to teach it. Other books are available which teach Minecraft Modding and Scratch programming.

• SPECIAL CAMPS AND COURSES- There are special camps and courses on programming which are becoming quite popular. As a parent, all you need to do is to search for these camps and classes, a good place to start is in universities found around you. If however, you can’t find any around you, Khan Academy and Code.org organizes summer camps and courses on programming.

When choosing these programming schools, it’s better to choose those who seem a bit harder for your kids as it isn’t uncommon to find some schools overselling what they do.


WHY TEACH CODING EARLY?
When you teach your kids to code at a young age, they gain a deeper and complete understanding of the logic and ideas behind coding and programming. This thinking can be seen in some of the most successful names in the IT world, Jobs, Gates…and several others.

The future of our world is digital and providing your child with the rich foundation in these analytical, and problem-solving skills will be highly valuable for his or her success later in life.



Why Coding:

Computer programming jobs may be declining, but coding is becoming the most in-demand skill across industries.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that employment specifically for computer programmers will decline 8% to 302,200 positions over the next decade as businesses outsource projects to less expensive contract workers overseas.

So as a parent or teacher you might be asking your self if all this is true why don’t more schools teach coding to their students. The answer is simple and some times hard to hear. In some cases teachers don’t want to teach coding because its something new and something that many teachers have never taught or never had to teach before.

Some school still only give time to subjects that are mandated or that are teaching to the test and I feel that this needs to change.

Coding and the arts are two of the most popular subjects but are taught in a small % of schools but this number is growing every year with mandates coming down to teach some type of coding.

I was recently in Arkansas talking to teachers about Codemoji and other platforms that they can use to teach coding to their students. Many of the teachers that I talked to were worried about teaching programming and were looking for solutions. While I was there I also found out that only about 20 teachers out of all the teachers that support about 300,000 students were certified computer sciences teachers.

The more I travel around the country talking to educators about coding and the challenges they face as teachers the more I learn that its not always easy to teach to the future when the state tests are designed for the curriculum of yesterday.

I think as a teacher or parent what you can take away from this is simple coding is coming and your children and students need to be prepared for the future.