
Ask HN: How best to introduce young children to computing? - pmyteh
I have a four-year-old child who I&#x27;d like to gradually introduce to computing. I don&#x27;t have ambitious dreams of creating a coding prodigy; I do remember a (late) childhood of games and tinkering and would like them to be able to explore the possibilities.<p>How have my fellow HN readers attempted this? Games first? Edutainment &lt;shudder&gt;? Start with an emulated Apple II and advance the state of the art at twice real-time from 1977? I&#x27;m at a loss. Your expertise or war stories would be appreciated.
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jstewartmobile
I think that's putting the cart before the horse. With adults, strong math and
language skills have been much stronger indicators of coding performance than
specific training. So pin-down the basics, and you get a potentially great
coder for free!

If I recall childhood correctly, they dumped BASIC/LOGO on the class, had us
grind through a few cookbook recipes, and none of it was particularly
inspiring. To a kid's mind, it's like, " _So, I type all of this into the
computer, and all I get is a stupid circle?!_ " Papert is a dead-end.

Fast-forward to high school--after algebra, geometry, and calculus--and the
value of the computer becomes apparent.

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arthurcolle
I really liked playing with Legos when I was super young (idk maybe 5 to 12?)
I feel like that primed me a bit in terms of assembling various components to
achieve an end-goal. Actual computing stuff? Consider that young saplings
don't have the intellectual maturity to actually grok computers until much
later.

Sorry my comment doesn't help more.

