My Honest Review of Sending My 5th Grader to a Coding Academy
It's been six months of block coding and three months of Python. If you ask whether my child likes it, it's fifty-fifty.
They've definitely gotten better, but I'm not sure whether that's 'coding skill' or 'the ability to do academy homework.' I'm a bit disappointed that it's drifting toward a problem-solving format.
So lately we've switched to making simple games together on weekends. We let the academy be the academy, and at home we focus on fun.
8 answers
Agreed, I have exactly this concern too. Being good at academy homework and actually coding are a bit different.
If they're only in 5th grade, isn't 3 months of Python a bit fast? With just 6 months of block coding, they won't understand the syntax... Isn't the kid struggling?
Making a game together on weekends is a really great choice. My kid is the same—at the academy, they just do what they're told, but when they're building things at home, their eyes light up. When I see them putting the for loops they learned at the academy to use in a game, that's when I feel a bit reassured.
Well, the ability to complete academy homework shouldn't be dismissed either. That itself is training in breaking problems down and handling them in order, and without it, everything falls apart later on projects. Criticizing it as being just a problem-solving approach seems a bit prejudiced.