[lifeisstillgood]

It took me a while to work this out - but I think its a great and brave choice.

Yes, totally agree software is "literacy 2.0". And yes, of course, we need pre-school books on software. I had weird books teaching me BASIC without putting it into context - and context not ability has been where I have missed opportunities or regreted actions.

So I applaud Linda for her insights, hope her world view is one I want my daughter to take into the 21 C, and look forward to seeing my copy at the end of the year.

[thearn4]

To be honest, I'd focus less on it being about learning how to code, and more about deductive problem solving skills and numeracy in general. If you have a pretty good foundation there, picking up a particular programming language isn't problematic. I think most people who stumble in basic programming have trouble because of a more fundamental deficiency than "I never learned to code in grade school".

[acdha]

Thank you for posting this – I was thinking the exact same thing. The real, huge win for kids is thinking about how to decompose a problem into easier, repeatable steps and that's of benefit in many fields even if you never write a line of code.

[cscurmudgeon]

I was about to say the same thing.

Poorly written software has cost lives. Of course, the vast majority of software devs work on CRUD apps, but increasing this pool will only make it more probable that a huge number of people not well versed in logical skills will be building critical software.

Question: Why are we not doing the same thing for the medical profession? Do we say medicine is the literacy 2.0?

[lifeisstillgood]

Comprehension is different to simple reading and writing of course, and problem solving is a different skill to simple coding.

But we teach comprehension through literacy, and we will have to teach coding the same way.