There are many ways to teach kids coding but here in this article ‘what is the best way to teach kids coding’ you will discovered easy and the most cost effective way.
Your kids can learn coding even without going for very expensive coding classes.
Technical education is becoming very popular day by days. Coding is no more an option to learn after school; rather it is becoming a vital part of education for kids.
It is because coding or computer programming is going to open numerous doors of opportunities before your kids, as programming is stepping in almost every industry and demanding many skilled people for the job.
Here is the list of simple steps your kids need to go though.
11 steps for teaching your child to code:
- Have a good computer with internet connection
- Maintain back up of electricity -Laptop/inverter (if needed)
- Find or prepare a distraction free place/room
- Define a specific time for learning regularly
- Explore the free courses/classes
- Start with easy programming languages
- Learn basics of different programming languages
- Make a career decision according to interest
- Focus on a specific programming language
- Fix target or deadline for learning with specific time frame
- Go for paid courses/classes for coding
- Have a good computer with internet connection
First step for teaching your kids to code is having a good computer with internet connection. The computer must be with at least 4 GB RAM and i3 processor for smooth running.
Your computer needs to have good internet connection for better learning experience.
Slow computer or having bad internet connection can be a severe issue for teaching your kids to code, as it will frustrate them and they may not enjoy the leaning process.
Make sure there is no any technical issue in your computer system or internet to distract the learning of coding for your kids.
- Maintain back up of electricity -Laptop/inverter (if needed)
If you are living in a place where you face electricity issue, then you need to think for electricity back up. Either you can provide laptop to your kids for getting rid of power cut issue or install inverter for avoiding electricity issue.
Your kids must not face any sort of problem during the learning of coding; a little power cut can cause a severe damage in the leaning process of coding for your kids.
- Find or prepare a distraction free place/room
Distraction can be a real giant enemy for your kids learning coding. A little distraction like asking your kids something or some noise or sound in the time of learning coding, can create a great difficulty in concentration.
Concentration plays the most important role in learning, so distraction can disturb the concentration severely, which ultimately effects on the learning experience of programming.
- Define a schedule time for learning regularly
Regularity and having a scheduled time for learning programming is crucial. When you define a scheduled time for learning coding in regular routine, it just produces a habit for your kids.
This habit of coding regularly will help your kids not to be busy with any other things during that scheduled time of coding.
Coding requires regular practice and a lot of practice, so never ignore this preparing a routine for your kids to teach coding.
- Explore the free courses/classes
Fortunately, there are plenty of free resources available on internet to be explored. Beginning with very expensive method may not so wise thing to go for.
There are many programmers, who have learnt coding by themselves. If you can guide your kids during learning coding then free courses and classes are just amazing for your kids for beginning the journey.
Most of the free courses or classes available on internet are for beginners, so you can take this advantage as your kids are beginner.
Do not worry, if you are not a programmer, remember if a kid can learn, then you can learn too, so let this time of learning benefit both your kids and you.
Check out the links below for exploring free resources for teaching your kids to code.
- Start with easy programming languages
As your kids are stepping in the world of coding, they must be introduced with the easy and fun Programming languages. Teaching them very complicated and professional language can hurt their interest of learning and can lead to unsuccessful learning experience.
For Younger Kids
So, make sure that younger kids begin their coding with drag and drop coding platforms like Scratch. Scratch is very easy and fun filled platform to teach coding to your kids.
You can either download the software in your computer or let your kids learn online by accessing the link below.
You can access the below mentioned Scratch Course for free of cost and teach your kids to code.
There are many YouTube channels out there provide step by step course to learn Scratch for free. Your kids can learn from YouTube and practice online. It is much easier than even you think of. You just need to search Scratch Tutorial in YouTube.
For Older Kids
For older kids they can start learning to code either with HTML and CSS or Python. I recommend start with HTML and CSS, as it is easy to learn them.
Once they learn the basics then let them move ahead towards complex programming.
You can visit the link below to access bunch of free HTML and CSS courses, pick one and teach your kids to code.
There are many free tutorials available in YouTube for learning html and css or even you can go for some free courses available on different online learning platforms.
- Learn basics of different programming languages
At the beginning do not be fix with a single programming language, let your kids learn the basics of different coding languages using free resources.
Different coding languages have different purpose, like
- HTML, CSS and JavaScript are used for web development
- Java is used for developing Android apps
- Swift is used for developing ios app
- Python is used for web development, AI, machine learning, operating systems, mobile application development, and video games
- C is used for developing desktop applications
- C++ is used to develop operating systems, browsers, games
Let them explore HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, Java, Swift, C and C++ and gain the basics of them.
- Make a career decision according to interest
Learning the basics of different coding languages will help them to identify what interests them more and according to that you can define the career goal for your kids.
As different career path demands strong skills in some specific languages, your kids need to be expert in the needed programming languages for the future career.
Find out working with which language is seems more interesting to your kids and take the career decision according to that.
- Focus on a specific programming language
Remember the Spanish Proverb “A jack of all trades is a master of none”.
So, let your kids explore and learn the basics of all the great programming languages but they must be mastered in one particular area.
Focusing on a specific area will make your kids even job ready for future.
Besides learning about the basics of all the popular programming language, encourage your kids to accumulate in-depth knowledge in one area of coding language and become master in that.
- Fix target or deadline for learning with specific time frame
Learning without target or deadline to achieve specific milestone within certain time frame will result poor performance.
You must help your kids to time frame the learning process and fix a deadline to complete certain level of learning coding.
When you fix a target for your kids, it produces urgency in their mind and as a result they focus with concentration to complete the task, which also make them to feel of achievement.
- Go for paid courses/classes for coding
Once your kids gained basic understanding of different programming languages, now it is the time to go for in-depth learning of an area of programming for mastering skills.
Gaining in-depth knowledge from quality courses or classes is not free in most cases. So, you need to go for paid courses or classes for that.
There are many cheap and affordable courses available to reach to the advance level in programming in a certain area.
Conclusion
I hope this article, “what is best way to teach kids coding” has given you great idea to teach coding to your kids in most easy and cheapest way.
Let us focus on the major takeaways:
Here are the 11 steps in nutshell for teaching your child coding.
- First of all get a good computer or laptop with internet connection for your kids learning coding
- There must be good back up of electricity ( laptop or inverter must installed, if there is electricity issue in your area)
- The room or place where your kids will learn coding must be distraction free.
- Your kids should learn to code regularly in a specific time as a habit.
- There are many free resources available for learning the basics of different programming languages, so let your kids explore them.
- Let your kids not get overwhelmed or frustrated by tough language at the beginning, rather let them begin with easy and fun programming to make them interested, so that the learning time will be enjoyable.
- Encourage your kids to learn the basics of different programming languages to identify what interest them most; it will help your kids to choose the right career path.
- Choose the career path in programming, in the area that excite your kids the most. Then it will become a enjoyable journey to reach to the goal.
- Help your child to focus on the specific language of the area of programming and master the language. It will even help them to reach to their career goal in future.
- Give target and deadline to your child to learn certain level in coding within a specific time. This will help them to be concentrated and make them feel of achievement.
- When your child has learnt the basics of programming language, go for paid courses or classes, as all most all the free resources provides basics and advance level require payment.