it' be even better featured tynker maker grace writing script in story-based game forces kids to think through the exact details and consequences of how their characters act they can' be vague they have to hone their ideasan important skill that takes practice " rd graders created stories with dialogue and lively characters in tynker they were so caught up in creating and narrating their storiesthey didn' even realize they were codingwritingand crafting compelling storyline at the same time kathy bottarodigital learning program coordinatorsioux city community school districtiowa coding reduces the "blank pagesyndrome creating story-based game requires narrative pacingcompelling storylinesengaging dialogueand an understanding of the audience in shortit requires the same skills that some children struggle with when their english teacher hands out creative writing assignment the difference is that staring at blank sheet of paper often evokes panicbut programming offers multiple starting points when they codekids start with one characterthen experiment with dialoguemovementand interactions they build from there by adding other actorsscenesand interactions the program starts at the child' point of interest and evolves to final product through process of experimentation and iteration when codingthere is no "blank page,only discrete problems to be solved coding teaches the value of concision when kids first start codingit takes them five lines of code to program character to move across the screen as they learn more programming conceptslike loops and conditional statementsthey can condense that code to two lines children