Teaching our Children to Memorize Scripture

At Entrusted, we strongly believe in the importance of memorizing Scripture. In fact, it’s a big part of both our Entrusted with a Child’s Heart resources and our upcoming Get the Word Out resources. We also believe that it is important to be helping our children hide God’s Word in their hearts. As parents this is one of the best ways we can encourage change in their hearts. Plus children are often excellent at committing even long passages to memory.

Try one or more of the following ideas to help your kids hide God’s words and principles deep inside their hearts.

1. Getting the Big Picture. Zooming out from the verse(s) to the context of the surrounding verses and chapters will help your child have a better concept of the meaning of the Scripture they are memorizing. For instance if your child is memorizing 2 Samuel 22:31-37, it would help to understand that these words were spoken by David after God gave him victory over his enemies. There’s deep belief in his words as he realizes how God has preserved his life.
2. Meanings and principles. Some verses may contain words or sentence structures that are unfamiliar to your child. Start by reading through the verses to make sure she understands the meanings of the words and concepts. Talk through the verses and explain any parts she doesn't fully understand. Does the verse teach a principle? If so, now's a great time to talk about it.
3. Draw it. To help your child more fully get the idea, have her draw a picture of what’s happening in the verses. Drawing can be an excellent tool for children to further process and think about the words in the verses, their relationship to each other, and their meanings. If the child is memorizing a longer passage of Scripture, you can try this technique by dividing a sheet of paper into boxes and then numbering the boxes to correspond with each verse in the passage. Now have fun drawing pictures in each box to help her remember key words in the corresponding verses.
4. Act it out. If applicable your child may enjoy acting out the verses with you, their siblings, or some stuffed animals. Let them be creative! Remember, the more involvement your child can have with the concepts, the more likely you will be helping her effectively tuck the passage away into her long term memory.
5. Write it Out. Now that your child has the general idea of what the verses are about, you can begin to work on helping her learn the words. A good place to start for most children is to have them write out the verse. In our family, it seems that using a white board or chalkboard makes this process more fun!
6. Spell it Out.. Try helping them write down the first letter of each word on the page to help prompt the child’s memory while they are learning. For instance, “For God so loved the world…” would look like “FGsltw…” This is a great tool to use while practicing.
7. Sing it. Making up silly songs or putting the words of the verses to a familiar tune is a quick way of getting Scripture truths into kids' long term memory. Our Scripture Memory CD is a good example of how songs make memorizing Scripture much easier!
   
8. Be their student. Try sitting back and letting your child teach the verse to you.

There are many different styles of learning – visual, auditory, active. Experimenting with a broad spectrum of learning techniques can help you and your child better understand which ways work best for their individual style. But one thing holds true across all styles of learning, and that is repetition. Write it, hear it, say it, draw it, or practice in whatever other way works best for you; just be sure and do it A LOT of times.

Remember... be patient and persistent, because what you are doing is important! You are giving nourishment to your child’s soul. And odds are that while you’re helping them learn, you’ll be learning the verses too. What a great way to be an example of what it means to be a hungry student of God’s Word!