I grew up in a Christian home. Because of that, I think it is so important to learn how to teach children to memorize scripture. While I was growing up, I was encouraged to memorize scripture. When I went to Sunday school, I was encouraged to memorize a scripture verse or passage for the following week. Often there was an incentive for memorizing scripture, too. When I was in homeschool, much of my curriculum included scripture memorization.
To this day, those are the scriptures that I remember very easily. When I’m in need of a scripture, it’s like they come right back to me just like that! I love that I was able to memorize scripture as a child and that I have that resource to come back to.
Now, obviously, not all of you grew in a Christian home. Perhaps you became a Christian as an adult or you’re even a new Christian. That’s okay. I encourage you that it is still possible to memorize scripture as an adult.
Because of my great start, I desire to help my children to memorize scripture as well. I hope that you will consider helping your children to memorize scripture as well.
Today, I’m going to share with you exactly how we do scripture memorization at our house. (For reference, we have a 12, 9, and 6-year-old around these parts.) That being said, I have been successful in teaching scripture memorization to my youngest at 3 years old. I just didn’t expect him to remember where the verse was found or to use the exact wording.
6 Ways to help your children memorize scripture
1) Start with small verses.
-If you’ve never done scripture memory with your children before, pick verses that are fairly easy to remember and not too long.
-Remember to take age and memorization ability into consideration. You don’t want to cause frustration.
2) Give them lots of time to memorize their scripture.
-At our house, I give my children one month to memorize a scripture. Now my oldest could easily do more than that, but it’s easier for me (at this time) to have them memorize at the same pace.
-If you have just one older child, perhaps you can do more than more scripture a month.
3) Plan ahead.
-I took the time to plan a scripture a month for the whole school year before school started this year.
-Being intentional will help make sure that scripture memorization actually happens.
4) Pick a time to practice those verses.
-We practice our verses at the beginning of each school day, just before we do our daily read aloud.
-You could also practice at the breakfast table, while doing family devotions, or even paste scripture on the bathroom mirror for your children to read while they brush their teeth.
5) Give rewards for a job well done.
-I don’t allow my children to eat a lot of candy so when they have memorized their scripture for the month, I allow them to pick out some candy at the grocery store.
-One family we know did a scripture memory challenge in the summer time. This was done with older children and I believe the children were paid in dollar values. At the end of the summer, they took them to a local Bible Bookstore and allowed them to pick out books.
6) Save the scriptures.
-I have gotten all my children rings to keep their verses on so that they’ll always have them. I take the time to laminate the scriptures and then punch holes in them.
I love that I have the opportunity to help my children memorize scripture. Because I have seen the fruit of it in my life, I’m glad that I can help my own children memorize scripture as well.
Tell me, do you encourage your children to memorize scripture?
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