Next-Gen Coders

Not all kids can learn how to program from a book alone. Some might need to be able to ask someone a question that they can't quite articulate and some stay on task better when an adult is involved. Some may simply enjoy the activity better when doing it with someone else. This book not only teaches kids to code in Python, but it also teaches adult coders how to help their child along. Author Katie Cunningham includes lessons and projects for students and adults to go over together. Each chapter points out where students might get stuck and suggests how best to help them. There are also completed code samples for students to play with. All projects also start with stub code, which tends to be much less intimidating for a young learner to work with, and lessons in the interactive version of the book include videos and runnable code. Kids Code assumes that the adult is a developer, while the book itself will do the heavy lifting of teaching the child Python. Non-coder adults can also work through the exercises, provided they read the chapter. Because the book leans on scaffolding and partnering, the age range can go as young as eight, but will work for high school age students.