Just had my first baby 2 weeks ago. I guess I'll be returning that Haskell book I bought for him...
The way I see it, she needs three skills to succeed. First, hold it the right way up and realize this thing is not an eye poker or lollipop. Second, develop a steady hand. The doctor says alcohol is bad for her, so there seems to be no easy way. Third and last but not least, learn resistor markings. I’m praying she didn’t inherit my color blindness.
When we’re there we can playfully discover Ohm’s Laws by letting her gut decide on the right voltage and current applied to her circuits. It’s going to be magic.
So although your suggested milestones are most reasonable, we’re ultimately going to stick with analog for the time being. I’m saying this fully aware that she might not be able to lift her creations the better she gets, but we all have slight scoliosis from carrying too many school books. She will survive.
Once she’s comfortable with the basics and hopefully frustrated with the limitations, she’s going to be ready to embrace digital.
Now, nobody checked out the box of keys - it was boring. Nothing you could build; no clear categories (too many kinds of old keys of too many shades of color). But the teacher noticed him taking them one at a time, dropping them over his shoulder, picking them up again and putting them in a row on the table.
She didn't disturb him - that was a rule of DAP time, nobody gets to interrupt you. But when he was done and had put them away, she asked "What did you find to do with the keys?"
He answered "I was putting them in order by sound". See, he was constructing a scale of sorts, by the sound they made when they hit the floor.
Wasn't another year when we discovered he had perfect pitch. Went on to master the piano and the cello before junior high; played in every school orchestra and event. He was playing professionally in High School (City orchestras; Orchestra Iowa) and competing at the national level.
Anyway, never underestimate the use of simple toys.
It doesn't really matter whether your kid can program at 5 or 15, whether he can read at 4 or 8. Nobody who puts in the effort doesn't get to a stage where they can do either of those things.
From my own observations (a limited set) what mattered is what you got up to when you already learned how to read, and you had vast swathes of time to spend either on reading things that you needed to know, or play video games (which you need to do as well, mind you). It's the kids who dedicated themselves to getting good at something who eventually did so. Academically and sports. And everything else.