Such an ignorant article, with the usual undercurrent of sycophantic nippohphilia. I'm so tired of sycophants on the internet pointing at some Japanese cultural 'thing' they have observed, in this case from reading someone else's blog, and presenting it to the world as though it is some unique discovery from the treasure trove of wonderful Japanese eccentricities.

This is not exclusive to Japan. Learning to write in also China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand to begin with, stroke order matters. They carry over the same instruction technique when they teach English.