Except, yes, I did. I didn't learn to read in first grade, because I never went to first grade. I skipped it, and there was talk of me even skipping second, because I already knew all the material that would be covered. I started "school" (what we'd call day care, nowadays) at 2--at my insistence. Nursery school at 3. Kindergarten at 4. I was reading Dr Suess and Richard Scarry in nursery school. I brought novels (Young reader novels, true, but still, novels) on the 45-minute bus ride to kindergarten. I read and comprehended adult math text books at that age, because I argued with my kindergarten teacher over the concept of negative numbers.

And, lest you think I was some sort of super-brain outlier, Every Single One of the girls in my kindergarten class skipped first grade when they transferred into public school. Our private school taught us ALL to read in nursery school. I may have been early for my year, but that still means most of them were reading by age 4. And even the public school taught kids to read in kindergarten. You were supposed to be able to read when you started first grade, or they put you in remedial classes.