I remember when my dad first got an IBM desktop computer. I was six and we had moved in order for him to get his doctorate at a major university. It was a big investment and I loved opportunities to work on it. He bought me a book that taught how to program using DOS. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but I only got a few sections in. Life has changed so much since the 1980s, especially wiht tech. That programming book I had is quite outdated and coding is the new term of the day. We had the chance to review Code For Teens: The Awesome Beginner's Guide to Programming (Volume 1) from Code for Teens and Rose has absolutely fallen in love with it!
The structure of this 10 chapter guide has been perfect for Rose. She will turn 13 in August and she found it very easy to follow along. This first volume focuses on JavaScript. Each section has a paragraph explaining what she would be coding. Following this is a section of what you should input and finally what the outcome should be. Rose told me she loved how easy it was to follow. She understood exactly what she was learning and could explain it to me with ease. She was even able to teach me a few things along the way. She said it was logically ordered and the instructions were very clear.
After every lesson Rose inevitably said, "Mommy! Come look what I learned how to do!" I'll be honest, while she was really excited to start I didn't think her excitement would last. BOY! Was I ever wrong! Not only was this what she looked forward to most with our daily lessons, she would often do more than one day's worth of work. This is a self-paced book and she chose her own pacing. I initially thought a chapter a week, but she did a lot more. She did not work faster than I expected, but for longer amounts of time. There were times when she worked for over 90 minutes just because she loved it so much!
The best part for me is that this is completely independent. While I was eager as a kid to learn programming, my interest did not last the way Rose's has. I really had no idea how to help her learn this. I love the drills, challenges, and review available to make sure she fully understands the concepts. I did have her work downstairs because she used a web-browser. We do not allow unsupervised technology use yet.
She did not bring her book with her, but she did ask if she could do some coding for fun while we were visiting Florida. It was really neat to see her practicing what she learned without needing the book handy! She also has asked me when the next volume will be available because she is so very ready to keep learning!
Take a look at what my Crewmates have to say!
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