According to my parents, at the public elementary school I went to for first grade in Toronto, Canada they taught writing before (or at least concurrently with)

According to my parents, at the public elementary school I went to for first grade in Toronto, Canada they taught writing before (or at least concurrently with) reading. Each kid had a diary in which we would at first draw and eventually write about something that happened each day. Kids would start with just pictures and gradually add more and more text. I don't remember any of this, but I can still read and write English even though we moved back to Mexico the following year, so I guess it worked.