On Saturday, January 4, 2025, an informative online workshop titled “FLN-Coding Skills for young children and its connection to Foundation Literacy and Numeracy “ was conducted by the renowned educationist Dr. Swati Popat Vats. It was attended by a group of 10 teachers from Salwan Junior School.
The session began by throwing light on the importance of coding in Early Childhood Education and NIPUN- a program which stresses on good foundation in Literacy and Numeracy skills in childhood.
Then she explained the role of different parts of the brain in learning- ‘Know the brain to practice whole brain learning’- where in she told that anything taught through play will be learnt by the right part of the brain and will go child’s long term brain or memory.
Then she told that the left part of the brain asks questions and is in charge of short term memory.
Then she told how coding helps in teaching skills of resilience, problem solving and following through. It also helps in boosting socio emotional development by engaging children in non-screen activities by providing hands on experience. It also helps children in equipping them how to learn and not what to learn.
Then she shared few steps to be followed in Coding like:
Decompose-It means to break a big problem into smaller parts. Then it becomes easy to solve any problem. Few activities and worksheets were shared related to decomposing.
Sequence-It means literacy numeracy, stories rhymes, songs all have a sequence and children need to understand it.
Understanding instructions to give instructions– It means that when children are able to understand instructions then they go to the next level of giving instructions. Then they can also device games and give instructions.
Algorithm-It means a list of steps a child needs to follow to complete a task. She explained through an activity of getting ready for school, in which if any step is missed what could happen.
Debugging- It means looking for a mistake and rectifying it. This helps children see the differences in letters and quantity differences in numbers.
Loops– It is a special bit of code that repeats again and again. It is used in rhymes, stories where children learn by repetition of words and stanzas. It is an important FLNS skill.
Pattern-In coding patterns help in understanding the concept of What come before and after.
Pixel-In coding it means small pieces through which children see images and learn through them.
Key Takeaways include
Coding can be started at pre school level and it is already being done through giving instructions and activities which provide hands on experience.
Why set of instructions should be different for different age groups for e.g. a teacher should start only with giving two instructions. For the age group of 4 she can give 4 instructions together
Acknowledgment and Gratitude
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Salwan Junior School for providing us with this invaluable opportunity to participate in such an enriching session. By facilitating our registration, the school reaffirmed its commitment to continuous professional development and its vision of delivering child-centered education aligned with NEP 2020.
Conclusion
She concluded by explaining how to indulge children and create their interest and most important to that they don’t loose interest is by starting with a small activity before a bigger task and move step by step to retain their interest.
