Baa.

"I wonder ...

when I will stop learning about sheep."  

... A child postured this question in a very cheerful way to her parents the other morning.

If you are often at worship, you might be wondering the same thing.

We have been learning the 23rd Psalm, line by line, always starting at the beginning and working up to the new part. 

So we have been listening to worship each day... 

and retelling,

and drawing,

and playing. 

...That's a lotta sheep.

As you might recall from September's blog, "Again!" — The Childhood Love Affair with Monotony, we capitalize on the fact that repetition is your child's best friend when it comes to his or her learning, but here is another bit of research that talks specifically about repetitions role in learning new words...

In their 2011 study Get the story straight: contextual repetition promotes word learning from storybooks, authors Horst, Parker, and Bryan demonstrate that children learned more new words if they were read the same stories repeatedly than if they were read different stories that had the same number of target words. In their conclusion, the authors state...

"It is not necessarily the number of different books that matter, but rather following requests to “read it again!”

Over 

... and over 

... and over again. 

There is a reason your children work this way. They know how best they learn! 

We all know this truth if we stop and think about it. 

Why else would we bother to tell a child over and over (and over) again that we love them, that they are safe, that we know them and they are ours? If we think of this love as a story (or psalm), why do we "read it" out loud to children so often? 

It's not just because it's "nice" for the child to hear, it is in telling them over and over of our love that the child grows in their security and knowledge of our love. 

So too do we learn of God's love for us, as we hear in the psalm. 

As your child slowly learns and builds this psalm, you might very well here a bit at home. There are many translations, so here are the words we are using ...

        The Lord is my shepherd,

        I shall not want.

        He makes me lie down in green pastures.

        He leads me beside still waters.

        He restores my soul.
        He leads me in right paths for his name's sake.

        Even though I walk through the darkest valley, 

        I fear no evil.

        For you are with me

        Your rod and your staff they comfort me ...

...  Listen to what your child retains from this psalm. They are not only retaining new vocabulary and knowledge, but they are growing in the knowledge of the Lord's love for them.