Comments on: Praise the Lord and pass the sibling rivalry!

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:30:06 +0000

Perhaps he would cringe too, to hear you talking about his ‘formidable’ years. Cast not the first stone, and all that…

By: Nope

Nope — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:00:43 +0000

Please someone tell this kid there is no God, Jesus did not exist before she becomes a religious nut.

By: Brooke

Brooke — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:19:35 +0000

I believe the word you were looking for is “verbose”.
The author could very definitely have been six. My eight year old would have written that note at six easily, and would have spelled everything correctly (praise the Lord and all!). She has been reading since she was four. Her brother who is the same age, struggles with reading and writing at the age of eight. She always stands behind him correcting his homework before he’s even done with it. She recently corrected my thirteen year old stepson when he misspelled something in a word find for Social Studies.
He is the least likely of all my kids to understand complex vocabulary. He wasn’t encouraged to read in his formidable years, but rather to play sports, video games, and watch tv. He’s a wiz with a baseball, but makes the most horrendous spelling errors on Facebook. It makes me cringe to read posts by he and his friends with errors that my eight year old wouldn’t make.
So, I concur; like you stated some people are just more inclined when it comes to language and others are not.

By: Lapsed Pastafarian

Lapsed Pastafarian — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:52:50 +0000

That’s exactly how my daughter would have written it at six…except she’s an atheist.

By: quat

quat — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:53:10 +0000

That would be the Holy Ghost child.

By: kermit

kermit — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:53:06 +0000

It’s past tense because most families can’t survive on a single income nowadays. When both parents work, there isn’t anybody around to go over school work at home.

By: fedora

fedora — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 22:27:18 +0000

“Some of us are taught at home AND in school.” Seems like that’s past tense now.

By: vstorevigilante

vstorevigilante — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:48:59 +0000

That’s hilarious, as well as pretty typical. I probably wrote letters to my mother saying she shouldn’t have had any more children at all (I’m the oldest ). And to everyone questioning the author’s age – it’s not even necessarily a ‘sign of the times’ sort of thing. There are 3 years between my sister and I, and I took a shine to words and could write like the above note by the time I was five. My sister could barely read til she was nearly seven, and to this day her grasp of the written word is shaky. Some children (and adults!) are just more inclined when it comes to language, written or spoken. I’m in my twenties; I read a lot growing up, so I’ve picked up a lot of different vocabulary over the years and I’ll often use words that I have to explain to my intelligent-but-not-language-inclined (there’s probably a better word for that, but I didn’t learn that much, I guess lol) boyfriend who is also on his twenties. If she claims to have been six, she was probably six. I don’t really see a reason for her to lie.

By: JC

JC — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:30:38 +0000

I was reading at 3, and could write like this by 4.
I love how total strangers think they know better than the person who wrote the letter lol

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 01:31:12 +0000

There is also the chance that the older brother (or in her ideal world, younger brother) helped the note writer learn to write so well. My favourite activity as a 7 year old was to ‘teach’ my 5 year old sister how to write.

By: Ma'am

Ma'am — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:40:11 +0000

I love how whenever a note from a little kid shows up here, people start arguing over how old the kid “has to” have been. I know my brother learned to write his name at three and by six could have written something like this. Not all kids are exactly the same, people. Some of us are taught at home AND in school.

By: Kao

Kao — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 21:19:04 +0000

Same here. I could write like that at 3. I began writing/reading at 2 1/2. My parent was a teacher and highly educated so that helped. It’s possible. And yes, I too wrote a mix of my thoughts + pastor’s ranting in my children’s Bible at church when that young!

By: Larceny of Electric Power

Larceny of Electric Power — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 21:12:36 +0000

I had to attend church on Sundays *and* go to CCD on Saturdays. What’s with this Protestant not-making-your-children-attend-service thing? (Sigh. I’m just jealous.)

In any event, I could write coherently well before kindergarten (which made me an advanced, if disruptive, pupil. I got a lot of “pleasure to have in class; talks too much” comments on my early report cards.

By: AJ

AJ — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:30:39 +0000

I wish that were the case. I am fighting a special gift from one of my students—a fever and all the other presents that come with it. Although, I’m not sure I can truly blame that as much as just overlooking a typo, which happens to the best of us.