Coding as a Second Language: A Powerful Way to Grow Your Child's Brain

Posted by Tiara Swinson on June 27, 2019

coding-as-a-second-languageWhether it is Spanish, French, Latin, Greek, or coding, learning a second language lights up your child's brain with thousands of new neural connections. This is one of the best ways to keep your brain active and growing. Learning a foreign language will improve your child's memory. Studies show that knowing a second language increases your child's reading, verbal skills, and intelligence, a nice package to help your child become a stellar student. 

Young Brain's Are Built to Acquire Language

Learning another language at a young age is much easier than it is when you are older. Children under six pick up new words quickly because their brain is still in language acquisition mode. A young child's brain is built to memorize quickly and is a master of making new connections. It is designed this way because young children must complete the complex task of becoming fluent in their native language. Children who learn a second language at this age have the advantage of having two native languages.

Learning to Code Will Strengthen Your Child's Memory

Programming code may seem even more foreign than the other languages listed above, but it is a way of communicating information. You type commands into a machine instead of having a conversation with a person, but there is still vocabulary to be memorized,  meanings to understand, and mastery of the material, in order for clear communication to take place. Programming will grow the brain just like other foreign languages and improve your child's memory because their brain is being similarly challenged to absorb new information.

When a Child Codes they Practice Creative and Analytical Thinking Simultaneously

To read code means you have memorized the commands and know what the program is telling the computer to do. Writing code requires both creativity and logic, just as writing in any other language does. You have to come up with the ideas, decide what you would like the program to do, and then develop the sequence of commands that will work together to achieve the desired result.

Coding Gives Your Child Practice in Powerful Cognitive Skills

Learning to code from a young age will not only give your child a marketable skill but also a robust brain that has had much practice in logical thinking and problem-solving. It will also strengthen their ability to focus and to multitask. When they are constantly switching between thinking in code and thinking in English, they get more intense practice filtering out information they don't need at the moment. This helps them focus on what information they do need. They can multitask more efficiently because they are used to switching languages frequently, giving them practice in quickly changing focus, which is at the heart of effective multi-tasking. 

Would you like your child to have coding as a native language?  If they are 7-years or older you can start now with iCode Genie classes.

Sourced with:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-27634990

Topics: Languages, Challenging Children, Computer Coding, iCode Genie

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