Enriching Education: Improve computer coding for kids with these tips

In this modern era, rapidly growing technology, especially in computer science, has made it mandatory for us to know about coding. It is estimated through surveys and research that the most advancement will be seen in programming in the next ten years. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to keep our children aware of this fast-growing field of computer science. 

Although the facilities of Coding class for kids are also available nowadays, you can teach your kids programming more effectively on your own. 

Whether your child is attending formal classes or teaching him yourself, you need to keep in mind the following things to make these classes more effective.

Scratch vs. Python:

It is better for younger kids who don't have sufficient knowledge or skills to go from scratch. Availability of free programming tools designed or developed especially for kids has added more ease to the process of teaching coding or programming to your kid. 

The simple graphical interface will certainly make it easier for your child to understand the programming or coding. MIT's scratch is the most suitable platform if you are looking for the options to teach your child coding. It is worth mentioning here that this platform is beneficial for children having their ages between eight and twelve.

However, when it comes to teaching programming or coding to teenagers, it would be better for you to go for a programming language like Python. This type of programming language helps develop more advanced and relatively better programs. 

Adding fun to your programming projects:

Another thing that you need to keep in your mind while selecting the programming projects for your children is to keep these projects simple and full of fun to grab. 

There are different ways that you can adapt to do so. For example, engaging your child in developing a game will attract him more as compared to any other project. 

However, always keep in mind that the gaming projects must be simple. Choosing a difficult or complex game project can have a negative effect, and there are chances that a child may not accomplish that task, and the project may overwhelm him.

Hence, we can say that gaming projects are among the most effective in teaching your child programming and coding when he is a beginner.

Keep it more practical:

Another thing worth mentioning here is that although theoretical concepts are necessary for a child to understand the concepts, practical work also matters. Without focusing on practical work, you cannot help your child understand coding and programming. 

We can understand it so that a beginner-level student may find it hard to start a new program despite having deep knowledge and information about loops, functions, and variables.

Therefore, when you are thinking of arranging a Coding class for teenager, you must engage them in coding activity and analyze the resulting changes in the final program. It will boost their learning capabilities up to the mark.

Make the kids practice more:

When it comes to learning coding and programming in a true sense, practice plays a key role. While teaching the coding to a kid, each and every single click or step needs to be done by him.

 While instructing him, avoid clicking or performing any step by mouse or keyboard. Instead, point towards that step and ask the child to do that. It will make a considerable difference and help the kid learn at a better pace.

In other words, we can say that it is almost impossible to develop a specific skill without practicing it, no matter how much knowledge a student has. Many of us have heard the saying, "Practice makes a man perfect." And coding or programming requires the practical application of this saying.

Therefore, when teaching programming or coding for kids, keep this factor in mind and make them practice as much as possible.

Let children do it on their own:

Whether you are teaching a child being a teacher or even you are teaching them as a parent, the best way to make them learn coding is to allow them to do everything on their own.

Whether it is typing or clicking with the mouse, you need to allow them to do it themselves no matter how much time it takes. However, your help in clicking and typing will accomplish the task earlier but keep in mind that practice is mandatory for the kid learning the coding.

So keep this factor in mind while teaching coding to a kid.

Provide sources of inspiration:

Before you ask the kids to start a new project, they must provide them with an already accomplished work as a sample. The sample will help in developing interest in them. 

Moreover, the codes used in the sample work will provide the kids a base for their work, and the accomplishment of the tasks assigned to them gets easier to a huge extent.

So, before assigning a task to the kids, make sure that you have provided them with a sample work first.

Providing references:

Although in most of the coding or programming projects, students are necessarily provided with the programming reference lists as well as libraries, they are too complex, and they can make the cumbersome tasks work for the kids.

Instead of these references, it is better to prepare a basic command list and give it to the kids learning coding or programming.

Manage the complexity of projects:

Not all students learn coding concepts at the same pace. Some of them are active learners, and they get the concepts quickly. In contrast, others are slow at learning or understanding the concepts.

Therefore, you need to maintain an appropriate difficulty level or complexity of the projects. Try to make the projects challenging but not so difficult for the kids that they cannot accomplish the tasks.

In other words, you need to keep the pace of learning in accordance with the level of understanding of kids.

Age factor:

While teaching coding to the children, keep the age factor in mind. Although the kids are active learners compared to the teenagers, it can be an overwhelming task for the kids when it comes to the detailed and lengthy lessons of computer science.

Therefore, it is always better to split the lengthy lessons into smaller parts in order to make them easy to understand for the kids. It will help the kid take breaks, ask questions, and have a proper understanding of what they are learning.

Conclusion:

If you want your child to stop wasting his time in useless activities and focus on some healthy and productive activities, then teaching him coding or programming is the best option you can go for. The creative activity of coding or programming will hone his creative as well as analytical skills.

However, before starting the computer coding class for kids, you need to keep in mind certain aspects, as mentioned above. These aspects will certainly help you in enhancing the effectiveness of teaching.