Coding is the buzz word in the education world today. Ever since it has got its due share in the National Education Policy 2020, everyone in the country is talking about teaching coding to the little ones. But does it really need any specialized knowledge or skills to teach coding? Does one have to be a certified coding expert to teach coding to children? Well, no!
Anyone can teach coding, and we, at Edelytics Online, can assure you that you don’t need to make your child join any costly coding courses as well because you, yes you, the parents, can very well teach coding to your children. Trust us, we are not exaggerating at all. After all, who can be a better teacher for children than the parents?
The need is to remove the stigma and fear associated with the tech-word and embrace it as one of the vital skills that your kids must learn. It is a skill that our young generation is going to need in the future professional landscape since most of the jobs will be tech-oriented at that time. So, in this article today, we, at Edelytics Online, are going to give you a 3 Step Plan that you all can utilize at home to introduce your little ones to the concept of coding. Read on.
- Introduce to the Basics
Just like we have some grammar rules in place to construct statements, be it in English or Hindi, coding also has a set of principles or syntax rules that must be followed. There are inputs and outputs, functions, variables, loops, and conditional statements in coding, the knowledge of which will help to lay the basic foundation about coding in your child’s mind. Google it up, and you will find a plethora of information that you can explain to your kids in the simplest of language.
- Get Hold of the Right Resource
Once you are done explaining the basics to your child, move to step 2, and that is about picking a tool for your child where he/she can indulge in hands-on practice. It will help them understand the concepts better. They will get to see how a set of instructions they give in the form of code gets executed in real-time. Code Monster, Khan Academy, and Code.org offer free tools that you can use to let your child indulge in some actual coding practice.
Below is a screenshot of how it works at Code Monster. You just have to follow the step by step instructions that the blue monster gives, and practicing the codes becomes just too easy.
- Let Them Work on Small & Simple Projects
The third step that will enable your kids to witness the fruit of their learning is to let them work on small projects all on their own. The project can be as simple as making a gold-colored rectangle of width 50 and height 100. But the key is to let the kids manage it all by themselves. It will help to instill self-confidence in your kids, and will also awake the willingness to learn more.
Coding is a skill that needs time, patience, and perseverance to master. However, with a little help from the parents’ side, children can definitely acquire this skill. Start slow; give them time to understand the things. Once they get onto the path of learning coding, the road to success ahead will be smooth for sure. Who knows with your help today, your little one grows into a brilliant computer scientist or a world-renowned coder tomorrow!