> but it's actually a whole bunch of very dissimilar things.
Even in the same kid it can be very dissimilar.
The main reason I was homeschooled was that the local school system's ridiculous "whole word" approach to reading and writing was failing me badly, and by age ten I still could barely read. So that part of my homeschooling experience was very traditional, hands on, drilling in phonics and other time tested techniques... and soon I finally could read and write fluently.
Meanwhile for math and science, I had no problem figuring it on my own with much less input now that I could finally read. I wasn't quite unschooled for those subjects. But it was close to that.
Funny thing is I actually learned basic programming _before_ I could read fluently. I remember the hardest thing about it being struggling to read the books I was learning from. Programming itself seemed pretty straightforward in comparison.
> Funny thing is I actually learned basic programming _before_ I could read fluently. I remember the hardest thing about it being struggling to read the books I was learning from. Programming itself seemed pretty straightforward in comparison.
That's really interesting. How did you get introduced to programming? For example, did someone show you BASIC interpreter on a computer? (Not knowing your age, I don't know whether BASIC was popular when you learned basic programming.) What was it like to use a computer barely knowing how to read?
I didn't even have a computer to use when I was initially learning. I'm not quite sure how I decided I wanted to learn, as I didn't have any friends or family who were programmers. But somehow I got interested and got books on BASIC and other simple languages from the library. I wrote my first programs with pen and paper on the kitchen table and had to "run" them in my head. I was probably about 7 or 8 years old, and didn't actually get access to a programmable computer until I was 10 (Hypercard on the school's computer lab). Which really frustrated me, as I didn't have access to a manual for Hypercard, so I couldn't figure out how to translate the ideas I knew from BASIC like loops into Hypercard.
It took until I was about 11 or so to finally get a computer of my own, a $50, rather antique at the time, IBM XT. Though really, the real breakthrough was when I got my second computer, a 286 or so that I literally took from a neighbor's trash. That computer I could mess around with without worrying about breaking it!
Even in the same kid it can be very dissimilar.
The main reason I was homeschooled was that the local school system's ridiculous "whole word" approach to reading and writing was failing me badly, and by age ten I still could barely read. So that part of my homeschooling experience was very traditional, hands on, drilling in phonics and other time tested techniques... and soon I finally could read and write fluently.
Meanwhile for math and science, I had no problem figuring it on my own with much less input now that I could finally read. I wasn't quite unschooled for those subjects. But it was close to that.
Funny thing is I actually learned basic programming _before_ I could read fluently. I remember the hardest thing about it being struggling to read the books I was learning from. Programming itself seemed pretty straightforward in comparison.