IMHO the answer is short and sweet, NO. It is not too early.
I think things can even be started in kindergarten with keyboarding .
I ran a dinosauric comptuer lab teaching K-7 students and came up with an
idea to assist the young students. Time was very limited in the lab and I
only saw each class once a week.
Particularly for the K-2 I took a keyboard, turned in upside down and
photocopied it, then enlarged it. I stuck this onto some card and laminated
the "keyboard cards". Some classes had a set of these. We would then play a
variety of games to get the students familiar with the location of certain
keys, for the younger ones's spelling their names and placing beans on the
letters of their names. Over a period of time they all became much more
knowledgeable about the location of keys and were able to produce simple
letters of a few sentances to their parents. To give the younger students
actual hard copy of their own work seemed to be particularly meaningful for
them, even done with one fingered typing..
As their hands grow and they can manage the more formal programmes, there is
quite a variety of good software ou there that is readily available. The
more colourful and fun it is the learning seems more like a game to the
students.
However, I don't think this is all that should be done with the younger
students. There are so many excellent software packages for language arts
skills and math activities, which have some quite sophisiticated thinking
and problem solving activities that I believe this should be one part of a
computer programme. Very little if anything should be taught in isolation,
which is difficult with only 1 40 minue block a week with no file servers
and having to load each disc drive independently, still we did it.
Good luck.
Pam Hagen
phagen@direct.ca
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" Albert Einstein