Programming literacy—the fourth R

In the new economy, not everyone will be a programmer, but everyone will work with programmers: making programming literacy a must.

Industry changes are making programming as instrumentally important as reading, writing, and arithmetic.

According to Professor Donald E. Knuth, the father of algorithmic analysis, computer programming is an art. Hatch Studio approaches teaching and learning computer programming in a way that parallels techniques and pedagogical methods used to teach and learn reading, writing, and arithmetic.

From the outset, students are exposed to, use, and think about real lines of code in the same way that they are introduced to real reading, writing, and arithmetic. The initial material is simple, but exposure and use of authentic computer languages means that they get used to successfully expressing full, complex, human thought to a machine.

Students can begin learning independently with Hatch Studio software when they can type—usually around age 8.
As with reading, writing, and arithmetic, students are advantaged by beginning the learning process at a young age when the brain is more plastic.

Programming literacy comprises several core competencies.

Becoming programming literate is a process that is computer language agnostic, but it happens by using a real-world computer language to create projects.

While computer scientists periodically invent new computer languages, adding to the extensive list of computer languages that already exist, this has no bearing on becoming programming literate. Students become programming literate by choosing a computer language to program in and becoming proficient in the use of that language.

The skills and competencies developed when working in a specific, real, computer language (JavaScript, for instance) transfer to other computer languages.

Hatch Coding develops programming literacy with JavaScript and Python.

Students learn to express the full range of their thoughts to a machine.

It also means that students practice the skills and competencies required to learn new, unfamiliar, computer languages with relative ease. Ultimately, being programming literate means that an individual can program proficiently in an unfamiliar computer language within a matter of weeks or months.

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