Coding for Kids: 5 Reasons It’s More Important Than You Think

Kids learning to code has become a popular subject in educational circles. Although the majority of parents and educators understand the value of computer programming, or "coding," many still believe that it is too specialised to be included in the K–12 core curriculum. Another school of thought contends that teaching coding to children is foolish and that it is better left to technology colleges where students have the mathematical grounding to comprehend many of

its complexity.

I can personally attest to the numerous important educational and developmental benefits of teaching young children programming. I am the academy's director for young programmers. Furthermore, there is no question that starting one of the most crucial literacy for the 21st century will be beneficial as computers become a component of almost every job. Here are 5 reasons why I believe teaching kids to code is more crucial than most parents realize

1. Coding empowers students

Coding may educate kids how to operate robots and other machinery, how to solve challenging mathematical equations with a computer, how to take original ideas and make them interactive, and how to produce things that are instantaneously available to millions of people. Students that acquire these abilities in their early years will have an advantage in the world of tomorrow since the opportunities for exploration, discovery, and growth are almost infinite.

2. Understanding code helps explain the world

Computing is involved in nearly every part of our lives from social media to internet to communications to banking.

Computing will become even more ubiquitous in the coming decades as advances in robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT) are expected to handle many parts of our daily lives including transportation, medicine, cooking, and cleaning.

In the same way that kids study chemistry, biology, and physics to better understand the world around them, it is now imperative to learn coding to understand how the modern world works.

3. Coding for kids provides a number of early learning benefits

Children begin to shift from observing their environment to forming logical connections as early as age five.

By fostering "procedural literacy," as described by educators, coding helps to reinforce reasoning. When you learn to code, you begin to consider processes in the outside world, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Mitch Resnick. Procedural literacy is regarded by many educators as a crucial 21st century ability that kids must acquire in order to be employable in the future.

4. Coding is a liberal art

Since their inception, the liberal arts have included grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy in their trivium and quadrivium, which is the body of knowledge needed to participate in civic life.

Soon, teaching students to code will be seen as a fundamental part of all liberal arts programmes. Since it is clear that machines will affect practically every element of civic life in the future, forward-thinking educators and administrators are beginning to view learning how to code as a fundamental talent that all children should acquire.

5. Technology and robotics will reshape jobs of tomorrow

Robotics alone is expected to eliminate 5M employment by the year 2020.

But everything is not lost in this news.

Only 2% of math and science students are studying computer science, despite the fact that approximately 60% of jobs in these fields are already computing-related.

Tech-related sectors offer enormous opportunity that will be very difficult to automate and remove.

There are more and more options for parents who want to introduce their children to computer programming, including summer tech camps, online kids coding courses, and after-school enrichment programmes.

We think that teaching coding to children in imaginative settings that encourage experimentation and discovery is the most effective approach.

Kids will be more engaged and more interested even when it becomes difficult if you let them code using things they already enjoy, such video games, applications, or Minecraft mods.

If you can get your youngster to associate coding with creativity, they might even take to it and learn some very practical 21st century skills.

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