What is the right age for kids to start learning to code?

Many times parents ask me what is the right age for kids to start learning to code? Here is my article to answer this question!

Note: This article mainly focuses on text-based coding age requirements, not the block coding age requirements (that may differ).

1.Math Skills – We recommend kids to be in 4th grade / 10 years or older. The reason is that even though learning coding does not require much knowledge of math, kids should know math for doing some sample exercises. Coding is all about knowing concepts and being able to apply or implement them in real-time (or to solve real-life problems).

2. English Reading skills – Reading is a very basic knowledge to expect. Here are 2 reasons for that:

a. Kids should be able to understand the instructions for examples and exercises. It makes it easy for instructors and kids to follow along with concepts and progress into deeper concepts. It is our experience if kids are able to understand instructions by themselves it definitely helps them as well as securing fewer typos while coding.

b. Debugging. All editors whether online or installed on the computer, do have the Console, which provides hints to debug the code. It is a mandatory skill to acquire to be able to read error messages and be able to debug their own code.

3. Appropriate Typing Skill – Before joining coding classes, kids should have moderate coding skills, so they can focus on learning coding concepts rather than using all the time focused on searching for the right keys to deal with. This creates anxiety in students and they tend to give up. This is one positive change I am noticing during online schooling; kids are getting more comfortable in typing and Computer skills.

4. Knowledge of Basic Computer Skill – It is very helpful in class when kids already know some basic computer skills – like navigation through file explorer, copy/pasting, downloading and uploading files, opening multiple tabs, using zoom or hangout appropriately, and some hotkey combinations.
As every child is different, our suggestion for the minimum age and grade is based on our experience. One more thing parents might understand – learning to code is not a short term skill, it is a long term process where you are preparing kids for logical and analytical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, and much more.

At Progressive Kids, we follow real-time coding instructions, where kids write their own code from day one. Instructors explain the concepts and exercises in the way kids are working. If they have any doubt need more explanation we help them.

Author – Jyoti Gupta
Program Director at Progressive Kids