From when my parents divorced was when I was able to read with some understanding. This was around the age of 6/7. My parents would send eachother Christmas cards saying Happy 'Xmas' to eachother. I thought that Xmas was a christmas word that ex boyfriends/girlfriends husbands/wives said to eachother.

Jake

I used to believe that if you folded a letter with the recipient receiving the blank side upon opening, then he or she would think there was nothing on either side of the paper.

SPC

I began reading the Harry Potter series when I was 10 and, according to the books, you get your letter to Hogwarts on your 11th birthday. I was completely convinced these books were real and cried for hours on my 11th birthday when no letter of acceptence to this magical school came.

Anon

i used to be a bit of a pretensious kid when i was younger, and thought one day that i'd give reading 'don quixote' a go. unsurprisingly i gave up shortly after, but it wasn't until years later that i found out the book wasn't about a bloke called 'don' whose second name was pronounced 'quick-sote'. genius.

anon

When I was little I never understood why adults liked to read. I thought that all the read were information books or dictionary/thesaurus... I never knew they actually had fiction books! Not until I was about 10!

Bekkie O.

when i was wee i used to think union was pronounced like onion, which led to some confusion when seeing the covers of various news magazines during the various strikes and worker problems of the 70's and early 80's

adrian

Whenever we travelled to the States, I thought that "Exxon" (like on the gas station signs) was how Americans spelled "Esso," which made me believe that Americans spoke a different language than Canadians.

Tammy

When I was about 6 years old, me and my younger brother found the "Lord of the rings" book in my parents bedroom,it was the biggest book we had ever seen, except for the bible, so we thought it was the opposite,the Devil's book, so we hid it under the book shelf, unluckily, it was a library book...

Lillian

My friend and I used to read Judy Blume books but we had a bit of trouble understanding some of the American expressions (we're English). First of all, lots of the girls had bangs - we had never heard of this before and thought that it meant big breasts. Secondly, they talked about cuticles - no idea what this meant but it sounded rude. We would have been so disappointed if we had only bothered to use a dictionary. (Actually I only found out about the bangs when I went to university!)

Cath

Used to go around my school classes and brag to people that I read "War and Peace" (being of course famous or infamous for its horrendous length). It was a lie... and I know I was just a kid, but I guess I didn't realize it was such a LAME thing to brag about.

ME: "I read War and Peace!"
THEM: "Nice, want to play Legos?"
ME: "I READ all of it! War and Peace!"
THEM: "Uh, okay. Cards?"
ME: "Tolstoy is cool, WAR!"
THEM: "Okay, you nerd."
ME: "And PEACE!"
THEM: *goes away*
ME: "I think I shall read it again!"

You may have, by now, gauged my level of popularity back then.

Ashton Sanderson

I always thought that the tv commercial phrase "Reading is fundamental" was instead "Reading is fun to mental". I guess I was. D'oh!

Chicago Joe

When I was 5, I believed that the older you are the bigger the books you read. I have clear memories of sitting in library class planning that in the future when I was in grade 6 (about 11 years old) I would borrow the two red 10 cm thick books that sat on the shelf behind the library teacher. As I grew older I realised that I had in fact planned to borrow two volumes of the dictionary !!!

C S Wagon

When I was little and learnign to read, I used to believe that chaos was pronounced "Chaa-Ose."

Anon

When I was in first grade (1995) I had read the book "Shiloh" (Bad idea). After reading it, I was terrified Judd Travers (Bad guy from the story) would come into my house and shoot my beagle. I belived this until 3rd grade, when I realized it was just a story.

Read it! READ IT! REEEEED ITTTTT!

As a child, I was a voracious reader. Unfortunately, I didn't read aloud to anyone to correct my pronunciation. For years, I thought the word "awry" was pronounced "ow-ree". Hearing the word "awry" in conversation did nothing to dispel this belief. I jsut assumed they were two separate words.

Ian

When I reached the third grade, my family moved to a different state and, threfore, I had to attend a different school. It was larger than my old school, so it was already intimidating. The first day, as I was walking down the hall, I saw a sign that said "Walk on the right side of the hall." I thought it meant walk on the 'correct' side of the hall. I was so scared, because nobody had told me what the correct side was.

pastrami

When I was maybe 3, my family went to Disneyland. My sister's name is Adrienne, and we both got autograph books for the Disney charcters to sign. On the cover, it said "Autographs". I kept saying, "This isn't mine, it's Adrienne's, because it says her name on the front" Apparently I misread "Autographs" as my sister's name. The funny thing is, Now I am a very good reader and speller.

Jarrod

There was a game I wanted to play that I thought was called Togg-Ither, but I didn't know how to play it. I read it in a book where it said that the rabbits were playing it.

I was dismayed when my teacher actually told me I had read it wrong, and that the rabbits were playing 'together'.

binz

Once in seventh grade we all had to read from our science books aloud. Well, I was reading a sentence and I came across the word Organism of course I thought I said Orgasm, so that's what I read outloud in front of my whole class. Everyone broke out laughing, even the teacher!

RoxyChic

When I was 8 or 9 years old, I read Harry Potter, and I was convinced I was going to Hogwards too. I kept believing it until I was 11, because I didn't receive a message form Dubledore. I was so disappointed..

Dude