Programming is a fun process. Now it is not necessary to enter many lines of code in English to master the basics and get the first result. There are more and more development environments that will help a child quickly and efficiently create their own program.
Which language to choose: visual or textual?
Programming languages for children can be divided into two categories: visual and textual. When choosing a language, adequately assess the age characteristics of the child. If this is an elementary school student, then it is better to choose a visual development environment. All that a child will need is the ability to read, drag and drop icons onto the work surface. If the child is a high school student, then you can switch to text language. Great attention should be paid to the syntax, as misspelling the function can interrupt the program.
Visual development environment Scratch
The program is the most popular among schoolchildren, as it has an intuitive interface. Each program in Scratch is a separate project. In creating a project, you can enter your own characters, choose the time and place of action, create backgrounds. The abundance of blocks allows you to select the desired functions. When creating a game in Scratch, you can program the hero to perform certain actions, change his appearance, add soundtracks and user feedback. This environment is also good for educational purposes. For example, for a chemistry lesson, you can create a model of a hydrogen atom, and for a biology lesson, a Pavlov dog simulator.
Python text-based programming language
Python is suitable for students in the fifth grade and older. To study it, Michael Dawson's book "Programming in Python" is perfect, where it is proposed to master the basic concepts of object-oriented programming. Through examples of small programs, consisting of two or ten lines, the child gets used to this development environment, memorizes the main functions. Thanks to the pygame extension, having learned the basic concepts of the language, you can move on to creating a real game for a personal computer. It should be noted that Python is not only good for educational purposes, it is used by NASA, Google and other large companies.
Recommendations
It is important to understand that the main goal of teaching programming at school age is the acquisition of universal skills by children that will help them work with any programming language. These skills include logical thinking, goal setting, and planning.
