SCRATCH ‘N CODE: Can coding be taught alongside literacy? Yes, according to researchers at the MIT Media Lab. On July 30, the group released ScratchJr, a free iPad app enabling children ages five to seven to program interactive games and stories, inspired by the Scratch programming language and its first user tool Scratch. If “coding is the new literacy,” as MIT Media Lab head Mitch Resnick explains, then ScratchJr should certainly help kids get a head start.
