Emily Gravett has authored a book about a little dragon who wants his mommy to read the same story book over and over. As a parent, I can certainly identify with this poor mother who only wants her little dragon to go to sleep so she can call it a night, too.

It is suggested, however, that repetition offers some advantages. In a University of Sussex study, it is suggested that repetition in reading is “more likely to lead to a child acquiring new vocabulary.” You can read the details from this study by clicking here. Psychologist Dr. Jessica Horst, who led this study, says, “”This research suggests that it’s not the number of books, but the repetition of each book that leads to greater learning.”

Over the past three weeks, the Sunday school children and I have been discussing getting to know God. We started out in the Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 9 where it says,

24But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the LORD, exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,” says the LORD.

As part of this lesson, the children learned a new word, the Hebrew word “yada” which means to know (to have intimate knowledge of).

The following week, I started off by asking this children if they remembered this special Hebrew word. Most knew it began with the letter “y” but couldn’t recall the word.

On the second week of the lesson, we talked about having a heart of longing to know God like the Psalmist says in Psalm 84:10,

Better is one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;

Since one of our favorite hymns is based upon this Scripture message, the children easily recalled it and were able to remember it the following week when we went back to it. In addition, when I asked them the Hebrew word we had learned two weeks ago, most were able to tell me it had four letters and started with the letter “y.”

Last week when we met, they were able to recall the entire Hebrew word “yada,” while learning about the worth of knowing God and heard Paul’s letter the Philippians found in Chapter 3 versus 2 -6 on how everything Paul knew before was trash compared to knowing Christ. They were also easily able to recite the previous week’s memory verse from Psalms.

Have you used this method of repetition in your home or church? How successful has it been for you?