When I was 6 or so, I'd both heard the word 'ceramic', referring to figurines, for instance, and I'd read it in books. But somehow I never made the connection that they were the same thing, and I thought the written word was pronounced 'creamic'.
A childhood belief about reading

others believed things like this
- In first grade, I thought that if I've never heard of a word before, then it wasn't a word.— Destiny
- When I was young I used to think that WHSmith was all one word, and was thus pronounced "Wwwhhhhuuusmith"— Nathan
- I used to believe that the word 'circumstances' was pronounced 'circus dancers'.— Mel
- When i first saw the word "Czech" somewhere, i pronounced it "siz-ETCH" in my head — Pachisu
- When I was young, I heard the word 'minion' for the first time and thought it was a miniature onion.— Karin
- For years I heard the word "pedophile" and thought it meant a pedicurist's tool.— Lauren