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★★☆☆☆
Requires an experienced adult to explain it to the kid
I give Coding for Kinds Python by Adrienne Tacke a score of two because of its practice of introducing advanced computer jargon early on with limited or no explanations. Ms. Tacke uses computer jargon without realizing that many terms that seem common knowledge to her are not common knowledge to her target audience, kids.
I have worked as a middle school teacher, professional tutor, and created and ran an after school program where I taught fifth through twelfth grade students to be tutors to younger children. A key lesson I taught them is that any event that breaks a student’s understanding of what is being studied gets in the way of learning, and undefined terms are the prime culprits for students at all ages.
I had hoped to use this book to teach my grandson (William) Python over a Zoom connection. We each have copy of the book, and I expected that I could get him started and help him in those places where he could not advance independently. However as I read this book I found 16 items within the first 35 pages that I felt I needed to explain to him. On page 33, “string literals” were introduced without a clear explanation of what they were. The term Literal is not even in the book’s glossary. I searched online for a good explanation, but wasn’t satisfied. I finally found one in the 1537 page O’Reilly book Learning Python by Mark Lutz.
Based on my incomplete understanding of literals, I would explain them to William as a small list of data categories, such as words or numbers, build into the software along with the appropriate operators, stored in a quick access place by the software. Strings that have not been pre-labeled as literals require the software to determine the data type and store the data in a different place. The general advantage of using literals is that the program runs faster with literals than non-literals.
We are going to switch over to Python for Kids, a Playful Introduction to Programming by Jason Briggs. It is much easier to work.
October 2020 · Books · verified purchase