All parents want their children to grow up loving to read the Word of God.  We want children who know the Bible, who read it, who love it.

But have you ever met anyone who didn’t enjoy reading, but loved to read the Bible?

A love of reading and a love of Scripture go hand in hand.  In fact, education as we know it today grew out of the Protestant Reformation.  Before the Reformation, only the wealthy and privileged could read.  But that was OK, because the church assumed that parishioners could get all the Bible they needed from attending church.  And if they had a question, they could ask a priest.

Martin Luther changed all that.  Luther said the Bible was for everyone.  Every individual should be able to read it – because believers could go one-on-one with God.  Everyone should be able to read the Bible and to understand it, because the Bible was for all believers, not just the priests.

It took awhile, but large-scale public education grew out of that commitment.  In the early days of America, which was one of the most literate nations in the world even in its early days, all instruction began with the Bible.  Today, we show an A and a picture of apples. In colonial America, the New England Primer showed a picture of Adam and Eve, and told children “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” And B? That was a picture of the Bible: “Thy life to mend, this Book attend.”

Colonial America was a book-oriented society.  Today, we are more likely to grow up looking at a screen rather than a page.  A really funny video a few years ago showed a baby who had found a magazine page with a lot of pictures.  He was taking his fingers and trying to enlarge those pictures on the printed page, much as he would with an iPad.  He had never seen a picture he could not manipulate.

But kids who grow up with screens often don’t come to love reading like we did.  And if you don’t love to read – no matter what you’re reading – chances are you won’t love reading the Bible.

What can Christian parents do to make sure their kids grow up to be readers?  Here are some ideas:

First, don’t give the job of producing readers over to your kids’ classrooms.  That’s your job – especially teaching your child to love to read.

Don’t overlook the obvious.  Does your child see you reading?  When is the last time your child saw you with a book or a magazine, or reading the Bible when you weren’t in church?  Reading is more caught than it is taught.

A teacher friend of mine says her classroom is “littered with literacy.”  In other words, there are books and posters and charts everywhere you look in the room.  The same idea can be true of our homes.  Does your child have a bookshelf in his or her room?  Do you ever buy books as gifts?  Do you plan fun trips to the bookstore to buy books?  Does your child have any kid-magazine subscriptions?

Do you involve your child in reading and writing?  When you go to the grocery store, do you ever pull down a box of favorite cereal and ask what words or letters your child recognizes? Do you let your child keep the shopping list and help you work through it?  (That is showing your child that print contains meaningful and useful messages).  And in the store, if your child asks for peanut butter, do you tell him or her to write it down on the list?  Your kid may say, “But I can’t write yet.”  Just say, “Write it down as best you can – I’ll be able to read it.”  And then, when you come to that item, say, “Ok, you wrote down peanut butter – let’s go get it.”

In fact, the grocery store can be one of the most literacy-producing activities you can engage in with your child.  If the list says four cans of beans, you say something like: “So where are the beans?  That’s right.  You see that starts with a B, doesn’t it?  You count off the cans as I get them.”  Some parents put their child in the shopping cart and tell them to be quiet while the parent shops – others carry on a running conversation with their kids, a conversation that is full of literacy learning.

And one of the most important things you can do is to read to your child – Bible stories and other appropriate children’s books.  I recommend cuddling while you read – a lap is the best place to learn.  And dramatize everything – use voices, get dramatic, and above all, make it fun and interesting.

Be sure that mom doesn’t do all the storytimes.  If dad doesn’t read to the kids, they get the message that reading is something only women do.

In Psalm 119:103, the psalmist says “How sweet your words taste to me; they are sweeter than honey.” That’s what we want for our children.  But remember, if they are to love the Bible, they also have to love reading.  Looking to the Bible for guidance for life begins with just looking to the printed word for useful messages.

And that’s something nobody does better than parents.

 

Debby and Tommy Thomason

Debby and Tommy Thomason

Debby and Tommy Thomason are CCBC members. Debby is a former kindergarten teacher and Tommy is a professional journalist.