For kids, coding is ‘basic literacy’: Penn prof Yasmin Kafai

Hour of Code?

That’s just not enough. Students need programming experience like they need reading and writing, said Penn professor Yasmin Kafai. In an interview with NewsWorks, she called coding skills “basic literacy.”

“We all have to understand coding like we have to understand reading and writing,” she said. “Very few of us will become writers and write the great book. That’s reserved for a few, but all of us learn how to read and write to express ourselves, to participate. Likewise, I think you need to understand how the things you interact with on the screens are made.”

Kafai helped develop the technology behind Scratch, which is often used to teach beginners how to code.