my Mum taught me to read before I went to school. Never regretted it, and jno jnr got the same treatment.
From about the age of 8, we used to have exams - written tests twice a year, on which our school reports were based. Nobody ever complained that we were overworked. Learning was what we went to school for, after all. When I got to secondary school, the exams were every term (three a year). We all coped.
But I must say, when I left university at about 22, I decided I was never going to sit another exam again, and I never have. I'm still learning stuff every day, but I no longer wish someone else to assess how I'm doing.
The odd thing is that I never saw anyone dyslexic. I'm not saying it doesn't exist; I think kids who suffered from it were just regarded as a bit slower than others. There wasn't any great stigma attached to it - it was just accepted that everyone was different. But I don't think I ever met anyone with the serious learning difficulties you see on programmes like this. So I sometimes wonder if it's not learning at all but something to do with changing diet, for instance, or changing climate, like the increase in asthma?