Not sure coding is useful for your child, especially if they're not interested in a career in tech? Coding is fussy. A program only runs if every word is spelt right or if the error is read correctly, so a coding lesson is full of careful reading and typing.
Reading
During a coding lesson there's plenty for a child to read, from the task they're working on to the error message that holds the clue to fixing their code.
Lessons are tailored to different reading levels, and our tutors read each task through with the class. When a new coding word comes up, like "variable", the tutor explains what it means. Your child sees the word written down, hears it explained, then types it into their own code.
Spelling
A word processor might tell you that you've typed something wrong by underlining it, but writing a computer program is not the same! Programs need the exact spelling of every command. In Python, print("Hello") shows a message on screen, but pirnt("Hello") stops the program with an error. Your child then has to read that error to find the mistake.
Commands aren't the only thing to spell. Children name things in their programs, like a variable that keeps the score, and write the words a character says in a game.
Typing
All our coding lessons involve typing in one form or another. Younger learners might update the text in a Scratch block, while older learners type out whole lines of Python.
Code is full of symbols like brackets, quotes and colons, and many of them need the shift key. These are keys many children have never needed before.
Your child might spend a lesson making an animation where two characters chat to each other. They learn to code, and get all this reading, spelling and typing practice along the way.
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