You can know everything you need to operate a computer without knowing a lick about writing software.
No, programming should be used to teach cognitive skills, language, structure, problem solving. Programming should be taught in elementary school, along with basic arithmatic and english. By doing that, you can ensure that the language centers of the brain get aligned in such a manner as to blend all three into a seamless language process.
Other thoughts on language: A functional decomposition of a sentance can be used to understand language without knowledge of the grammar, just the behavior of every word. For example:
This is a sentance.
is(this, a(sentance))
Sentance is an atomic variable, containing the meaning: the basic gramattical component.
a is a quantifier, that takes as a paramater one noun, and results in a single copy of that meaning.
Is is a verbal function, taking two paramaters, the left-hand noun, and the right hand noun. Is returns a relationship between these two nouns, stating equivalency.
