They taught us computer programming concepts, in elementary school, in the 90s with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)

We didn’t know it was programming, we thought we were instructing a turtle (with paint on his tail) how to draw pictures. But we were learning how to solve problems with functions, loops and select statements.

I didn’t realize it until I was in high school and learning C, I just remembered it as a really neat computer drawing class.

Scratch is probably an improvement, I haven’t looked at it too hard though.

It’s in the standard elementary school curriculum.

They learn Scratch where you drag and drop code blocks to build a flowchart.

Of course. You can even use the syntax.

My opinion is that most educational stuff treats kids super super carefully. If you’re a parent or doing 1:1 teaching, you very precisely target which things to do and how to teach them. Like, “don’t go into the deep end of the pool” is for when there isn’t someone paying attention and watching. But you are. You can step in and help. Go have fun in the deep end.

The bigger problem I see, is that for learning to happen, there needs to be genuine interest and a genuinely good project for the kid to do and chances are they can’t do that, because they don’t have any problems that need solving.

You can bridge that by making something up or buying a kit, but ultimately, learning to code is about empowerment to solve your own problems.

Just the word syntax? Sure. You teach coding at first by example, not from first principles. At some point, explaining the concepts helps in the teaching but not at first.

Depends what you consider the baseline to call something “coding”

Plenty of kids dabble with Redstone in Minecraft, there is also stuff like this:

Yes. Look up LOGO.

As soon as they can read a little, they can program. Visual languages or text even. They need a very user friendly env but kids pick up QUICK

I was coding Lua at 13, when I learned I def felt like I could have learned earlier. I was surprised the basic concept was so easy.

Plenty of good resources shared and I’d add

• the very tangible https://spike.legoeducation.com/ which isn’t cheap but IMHO well worth it
• ScratchJr
• OctoStudio on a normal phone or tablet, imagine Scratch but easier onboarding and more creative, easier for younger kids, great UI to do so on the go, e.g. waiting for a flight
• Beyond Coding, How Children Learn Human Values through Programming by Marina Umaschi Bers
• KIBO Robot https://sites.bc.edu/devtech/kibo-robot/ specifically aiming kids as young as 4yo
• shameless plug, my own work https://nlnet.nl/project/ImmersiveXP/ but very experimental

… and yet, all that being said and done the deeper question IMHO is why?

The word “syntax” should not be taboo. Grammar should also not be something to ignore. In fact if you consider Umaschi Bers, Papert, or Alan Perlis’ “A programming language that doesn’t change the way you think is not worth learning.” the crux is why learning programming in the first place?

Are you creating yet another developer or rather are you helping someone to explore what even programming is? What building things mean regardless of what tool they use? What is a language?

of course the former is more pragmatic but the later IMHO is much more interesting and will probably keep them learning for their entire life. It probably also will, as a side effect, teach the former.

Some people I know we’re writing C++ code without AI when they were like 7 years old

https://www.helloruby.com/

It’s a kids book about a girl called Ruby who goes on adventures that slowly teach the basic concepts of programming to kids.

It’s also been translated to 22 languages and won a bunch of educational awards.

Just demonstrate what a syntax error is.

“The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” Vs “The fox, quick, brown, lazy dog is jumped over by.”

You are trying to say the same thing but the computer expects to be told a certain way, so it’s confused.

You could try Code For Life. https://www.codeforlife.education/

BASIC. Get a C64 emulator and some old kids books that have examples. Watch them go wild just writing "10 PRINT ‘{sibling_name} SUCKS’ / 20 GOTO 10 "

If coding is the means to an end they want, they will learn it.

I started learning how to program because I wanted to mod Halo 20y ago. Gaming is often a motivator. I had a co-worker who started in the 80s, whose only option to play games on his C64 was to type up a bunch of BASIC from a magazine. He had to take care not to make any typos, then play the game, and then didn’t have any persistent tape to save it to, so he just lost it all on a reboot. Turns out, if you’re “forced” to type code in all the time, you start to figure out which bits do what, and you start changing it to behave how you want.

“Hacking” could probably work as a motivator, though with great power comes great responsibility.

But yeah, a kid won’t be interested in programming unless they see it as their only option to do what they want to do. PICO8 might be a good entry. Or something like Minecraft modding.

I learned coding at age 7-8 by messing around with the scripts of the built-in demo stacks in HyperCard. It was close enough to English that you didn’t need to study syntax but could easily learn from example