You make some good points, but as just one counterexample, the famed distorting effect of BASIC on a beginning programmer is certainly made worse by allowing the student to write BASIC as well as read it. As to, say, Python, I guess this is less of an issue, and writing a bit of Python just to see what happens probably has a beneficial effect on comprehension.
But, granted that point, I think reading and understanding the code of skilled programmers, before trying to write any significant code, is a very good idea. Otherwise one risks becoming trapped in classic beginner errors like laboriously processing individual data elements instead of looping through a list of them with one processing function (an error I saw any number of times while teaching programming).
I was actually tempted to comment about the language selection as well, but this post did mention that it was in the context of web development.
I disagree, somewhat. I think one cannot become a skilled code-reader without knowing how to write code. One cannot be a skilled code-writer without knowing how to read code, and having read a lot of code, but without having written any code, I don't think reading code provides any enlightenment.
My small-steps progression would be writing Hello World, writing a smallish program, learning how to read code, writing code that you have to maintain, becoming skillful at reading code, becoming skillful at writing code.
I agree with you on natural language, that one must be a skilled reader before writing. I think the reason I see a difference between code and natural language is that the baby-steps of writing code can be mapped onto speaking natural language. I don't think one could become a skilled reader before being a proficient speaker in one's native tongue.