Daily Bible Reading

Since the most important part of homeschooling, in our home is training our children in the discipline and instruction of the LORD, one of their daily assignments, once they are able to read, is reading the Bible. The first year they read through the New Testament and each subsequent year they read through the whole Bible.

We have been asked why we make Bible reading an assignment. After all, the argument goes, we want our children to read the Bible because they want to know God, not merely because we require it. True, just as we wish for our children to brush their teeth in the morning because they desire to be clean and have good grooming habits. However, in our house we do not give our children the option of brushing their teeth, we require it and we trust that through the habit of brushing their teeth every single morning they will appreciate the benefits and acquire the habit.

So how do enable all of our children read the Bible daily?

• We have time set aside first thing each morning for Bible reading.
  
• We give each independent reader their own dated Bible reading schedule.
  
• Mark and I also read from this schedule, so that all of us are reading the same passages. This works for us because we are able to ask our younger children questions about their reading, in order to see how much they are comprehending. We are also able to better field questions from the older children . All of us reading the same passages each day also encourages discussions between the children about topics or stories that they have read.
  
• We like to pick schedules that have New and Old Testament readings each day. Our early readers just read the New Testament assignments, which are generally about 20-30 verses long and the older readers read the whole assignment.

Reading through the Bible each year has given our children more biblical fluency than I had hoped. It has equipped them to think more biblically because they know more of what the Bible says and has helped them to realize that the Bible speaks to all areas of life. It has also lead to several interesting conversations. After all the Bible is not exactly G rated.

There are many Bible reading schedules available online. I like this one. Another one that is already dated and goes through the Bible chronologically is here.

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