[kant_adorn_arts]

They talk al ot about "coding" at primary school, but what they mean is making the turtle follow simple instructions - inputed via tablet. These lessons are teaching children how to use technology, not how to be coders, makers or engineers. We will end up with a lot of kids pushing buttons, not with a lot of engineers. IMHO teach kids to use a keyboard first and get them out of these walled garden button pressing labyrinths.

[pyrale]

Also, don't teach them to read. Just give them an alphabet and let them sort it out.

[neura]

Also, don't give them apples, only oranges!

[hexo]

I stared with coding in primary school. I was 6! (no thats not 6 factorial) We did stuff in a Logo variant. It was life-changing and I remember enjoying it so much.

edit: We had a teacher and special "after school class".

[friedman23]

Coding should be taught after algebra. Don't really know how you can learn to code without understanding the concept of a variable.

[csande17]

Personally, I don't know how anyone could learn algebra without first understanding the concept of a variable. In programming, one generally thinks of variables like "boxes" that you can put values in (with, eg, `i = int(input("Enter a number: "))`) and take values out of (by referring to `i` later in the program). Algebra, then, expands on this by introducing more advanced ideas like "solving for a variable".

Of course, I'm probably biased because I learned programming before algebra myself.

[Falkon1313]

Also it's a lot easier to understand algebra once you understand factoring. I don't know how people get through it without that.

[issa]

I have not studied the subject beyond remembering my own childhood and seeing my children learn, but I think most kids are able to grasp the concept of a variable much earlier than they learn Algebra or coding. Variables grow naturally out of categorization, which is something very young children excel at. Once you learn the difference between "a ball" and "the ball" you're halfway there.

[marcosdumay]

Imperative language variables aren't the same concept as algebra variable anyway. I don't see how one helps with the other.

In fact, it's much better to state this out loud to people learning to program, because statements like 'x = x + 1' added to the name coincidence make things very confusing.