Coding is essential to modern society. It’s everywhere—from the phones that wake us with an alarm every morning and the computers we use at school and work to the very systems that make our organizations and cities run.
Coding is an increasingly important pillar of a strong STEM education program. When coding is introduced to the classroom as early as elementary school, students can become confident learners in the subject and can begin to develop a passion for coding and STEM.
In this article, we’ll explore the basics of teaching coding in the elementary school classroom, including its benefits and how to implement it in your STEM classroom.
What Is Coding?
Coding is the process of writing instructions for computers through dedicated coding languages, which software can then convert into machine-readable information. These coding languages, also called programming or scripting languages, have specific rules for grammar and syntax. Examples of coding languages include HTML, JavaScript, Python, PHP, Ruby, C++, and SQL, to name just a few.
Coding is a subset of programming, which it is sometimes confused with. Programming is the comprehensive process of planning, creating, and launching a software application or system. Programming involves a more complex understanding of the principles and practices at work, one of which is coding.
By introducing students to coding at a young age, they can develop a foundational fluency in an essential pillar of programming. Coding for elementary school students can be taught effectively alongside robotics and computer science as all three topics continue to grow in importance.
7 Benefits of Teaching Coding in Elementary School
Coding offers exceptional benefits to the elementary school STEM classroom. Let’s dig into a few key benefits.
Digital Literacy
Teaching coding in the classroom can help improve the digital literacy of your students. Digital literacy is the ability to use technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information. Students who are digitally literate have the ability to use technology, including the internet, to find and evaluate information, judging the accuracy and reliability of that information.
Coding goes hand-in-hand with strong digital literacy skills, as a coding education directly intersects with these platforms. By having regular coding lessons as part of a larger STEM education, students can build a STEM identity that features strong digital literacy skills.
Hands-On Experience
Coding can be more than what is seen on a computer screen. Coding lessons can include a robotics component, with students coding commands for robots and problem-solving to achieve a goal.
Combined coding and robotics lessons allow students to realize the practical application of what they’ve been learning in their STEM education. Students can also see essential scientific, engineering, and technological concepts come to life in front of them, due to their own hard work.
A dedicated STEM program like Kid Spark Education allows STEM teachers to easily bring coding and robotics curriculum into the classroom. Kid Spark’s Robotics and Coding 101 provides everything you need to implement coding lessons into the classroom, with robust materials, workbooks, curricula, professional learning modules, and online tutorials.
The Kid Spark STEM program features multiple lessons that give students the opportunity to gain confidence in coding through fun and simple activities, even for those students who have never experienced coding. The coding lessons start off with block-based coding and then move students into traditional text-based coding. These units build upon other STEM concepts and give students the opportunity to establish their STEM identity and curate their own creativity in the subjects.
Opportunities for Creativity
STEM subjects sometimes get a bad reputation for lacking creativity—although ask any STEM educator, and they’d likely disagree! The STEM subject of coding can be great for unlocking opportunities for creativity.
Coding can be seen as an art form for some or a logistical challenge for others, but either way, it can open up a new world for students. Elementary school students may be particularly excited to spend time on the computer, and engaging coding lessons give those students the chance to see their ideas come to life in a safe, productive environment.
The coding and robotics lessons from Kid Spark give a particularly beneficial opportunity to develop this creativity, as they incorporate hands-on robotics with which students can design, build and code mechanisms.
Academic and Career Prospects
Coding is going to continue to feature as an in-demand career well into the foreseeable future. Students who learned coding in elementary school will have a huge leg up. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Overall employment of software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers is projected to grow 25 percent from 2022 to 2032.”
Prior to any STEM career pursuits, students can benefit academically from learning coding in elementary school. They can take part in specialized extracurricular activities and even take part in coding outside of school.
Coding and Math Skills
Declining math scores in elementary school students and beyond have begun to cause alarm among STEM educators, parents, and beyond. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2022, average mathematics test scores for students age 9 declined by 7 points compared to 2020.
Coding education provides a unique opportunity to address this concern with a cross-curricular approach. Coding is a highly mathematical subject, bringing in logical thinking skills and calculation techniques as well. Best of all, students may not even realize they are reinforcing sometimes-dreaded math concepts.
STEM Equity and Inclusion
There are undeniable gaps in equity when it comes to STEM education, disparities that have far-reaching consequences for communities and careers. This is a part of a larger pattern of educational inequity that affects the most at-risk children across the country.
STEM concepts are an essential tool for understanding and interacting with the world today. Teachers can help disrupt these patterns of inequity, but only if they have the tools to teach key STEM subjects like coding.
At Kid Spark Education, we believe that, by providing tools to support STEM education, from toddler to teen to teacher, we can help students develop the courage to imagine a better world and the skills to create it. With Kid Spark, kids learn to see like designers and think like engineers.
Kid Spark Education is a 501(3)c nonprofit organization created to realize that vision of disrupting the pattern of educational inequity in STEM education.
Grit and Perseverance
An essential step of coding is the testing and debugging process. As they take part in coding lessons, students will learn to overcome problems and not give up when things don’t work out the first time. When coding robots, students are working toward an especially satisfying payoff—the successful operation of their robot.
Thus, coding lessons can provide a great opportunity for elementary school students to learn grit and practice perseverance. These skills are hugely helpful not just for STEM class and not just for school, but for life.
How to Bring Coding into Your Classroom
Coding lessons can start for students as early as elementary school. For some STEM teachers, teaching coding lessons can feel intimidating, though, as the concepts are unlike many other traditional academic subjects.
With the right preparation, though, coding can become an exciting part of your STEM curriculum for both educator and student alike.
Finding the Right STEM Education Program
While there are plenty of online coding lessons for elementary school students, these programs cannot provide a comprehensive education in the same way a hands-on program can. Take the time to find the right program for your needs.
Let’s break down our STEM program’s coding lessons. The Kid Spark Education STEM Pathways Lab covers multiple technologies and STEM concepts, including coding and robotics. Our computer science and robotics curriculum consists of three units of instruction that comprise 16 lessons for a total of over 40 hours of classroom time.
The Robotics and Coding 101 STEM unit from Kid Spark Education teaches students the basics of coding by getting familiar with the Spark:bit robotics controller and the MakeCode software that is used to program it. Students will gain confidence in their ability to write simple programs that can be uploaded to the Spark:bit.
The Kid Spark STEM lab comes with everything you need, including:
- Instructional Materials: Complete lesson plans, grading rubrics, student workbooks, and instructional guides to assist both educators and students
- Professional Learning: Online educational resources for teachers so that they can feel confident in their STEM instruction
- Robust Materials: Reusable components for every lesson plan and design challenge all located in one organized bin
The robotics and coding lessons from Kid Spark follow a standards-aligned curriculum to teach students key concepts like input sensors, conditionals, loops, variables, and functions. Each unit of instruction also includes an open-ended design and engineering challenge so students can apply their learning to create custom solutions.
With robotics and coding lessons from Kid Spark, students and STEM educators can embrace the concepts of coding with enthusiasm and confidence. Our STEM curriculum can be explored online—make a free account to access and download complete teacher guides.
Bring Coding to the Classroom with Kid Spark Education
When a STEM teacher can confidently teach coding to elementary students, they can better serve them, leading to better outcomes and strong relationships. By investing in a comprehensive STEM program that features coding and robotics, you can have a seamless experience introducing these new concepts to your students.
To get started, contact our team today to learn more about our STEM programs.