It's never too early to teach a child anything.

Growing up, I had access to a Commodore64. It wasn't much, and I didn't know much about it besides LOAD "*",8,1. I started using it around age 5 (1986).

When I got into school, I was allowed to use the school's Apple II's and first generation Macintoshes. Our school had a mandatory BASIC course which all the students had to take. Well, a partner (who also had home-access to a computer at an early age) and myself wrote about 500 lines of BASIC composed of a menu system and three very simple games. This was all done on Apple IIs. Not many others in the class programmed anything besides low-res still images (which was covered in depth). I'd safely say that not one of those 21 kids remembers how to write BASIC on an Apple II. But I know that for many of those kids, this was either first experience with a computer, and by allowing them to have free access to it, it gave them a greater understanding and respect for computing.

A healthy mix of computer instruction at home and in school is what makes children become knowledgeable in computers and programming.

John J Reiser
newrisedesigns.com