[atemerev]

When I was in primary school (around 1989), I coded in BASIC (first, by typing some pieces of code from textbooks to see how they work, then altering them, then trying to write something on my own — e.g. tic-tac-toe, or date calculations).

The best modern analogue of BASIC (though much more attractive) is probably Processing. Lua also works. Then kids should start to learn Javascript to understand that the real world is not that logical.

[decasteve]

I had the same experience. Typing in BASIC from books/magazines in the mid-1980s and modifying the code after I got it working.

My 7-year-old daughter uses Scratch. My 6-year-old son watches me play code combat and tells me what to do. I explain what I'm doing as I type.

[Dirlewanger]

I never see anyone talking about Processing. It's probably the quickest way to go from never-programmed-before to having visual results (well, maybe aside from JavaScript). http://openprocessing.org has a massive compendium of shit people have made in it over the years.