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Singing the Books of the Scriptures
By Kathryn H. Kidd
People are finally getting warmed up to the topic of instilling a love for the scriptures into our youth. And what did it? Songs! People from all over the country (and maybe all over the world, because some were anonymous) wanted to let me know that there is a song where children can sing the books of the Book of Mormon. I knew there would be, but being a convert I didn't know where to look. Thanks to all of you who pointed me in the right direction.
First we'll find out about this song, and then we'll go on to other scriptural ideas that were sent by Meridian readers. You're a great bunch of readers, and I always look forward to seeing what you have to say.
There is a song in the Primary hymnal that lists the books of the Book of Mormon. It is on page 119 and is called “The Books of the Book of Mormon.” It is sung to the tune of “Ten Little Indians.”
Amy
Thanks, Amy! Thanks, too, to Telitha Roby, who also sent that information.
Readers, if you don't have a Primary songbook, Bobbi Peterson sent the words:
A song to learn the books in the Book of Mormon:
To the tune of "10 Little Indians" — two verses:
First and second books of Nephi
Jacob, Enos, Jared, Omni
Words of Mormon and Mosiah
Singing this is so fun.
Alma, Helaman, Third, Fourth Nephi
Mormon, Ether, and Moroni
Now I know the books in order
In the Book of Mormon.
Bobbi Peterson
Pinetop, Arizona
Candace Snyder sent a link so you can see the sheet music and even play it (press the play button on the top left of the screen):
Helpful Reader actually gave us a link to a CD where you can buy the song and sing along with it — fast! Here's what she had to say:
There is a song for this one in the Primary songbook, page 119. There is also a version of this on the "Primary Colors Music CD” by Insideout A Capella available at LDS bookstores. They sing it super fast, and we love trying to keep up with them!
Helpful Reader
Finally, a seminary teacher wrote in with what he does in Seminary to foster a familiarity with the scriptures, using some of these same songs:
These are some things I do as a seminary teacher that can also be done in Primary.
Ask the chorister to teach and then sing often the songs that help the students learn the book names. Have the children open their scriptures and sing right from the table of contents. For the Old Testament the books are sung to the hymn tune “Do What is Right;” for the New Testament it is “Praise to the Man;” for The Book of Mormon it is the tune “Ten Little Indians” (page 119 in the Children's Songbook). Last names of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve can be sung to “London Bridges.”
When having students look up specific references I write the reference on the board and also give its page number . Giving the page number makes things quicker and prevents a student from pretending to be bored or indifferent when in fact they are simply embarrassed that they cannot quickly locate a reference.
I would encourage Primary workers to be patient and make it easy for the children to be successful. Think of it as foundation building and capitalize on the eagerness and willingness of children to take on the very grownup task of locating scripture references.
Arnon Livingstone
Glendale , Arizona
There you have it, readers — the words to the song, the location in the Primary songbook, a link to sheet music, and even a place where you can purchase a recording of it. Meridian readers are the best!
And as long as you're teaching the “London Bridges” version of the General Authorities, here's one to the tune of the “ Beverly Hillbillies” theme.
Now that we know all about songs that can teach our young people, let's get down to other ways we can get youth to learn the scriptures:
First, thanks to whomever sent the websites with Seminary scriptures, and the lyrics to the books of the Old Testament — by division. That information was most helpful!
Scripture Songs
As to how to help the children, when I was in Primary, there were no songs at that time to help us memorize the books in the Old and New Testaments, but there are today. Pages 114-15 have the song, The Books in the Old Testament . (Tune: “Do What is Right”), and Pages 116-17 have the song, The Books in the New Testament . (Tune: “Praise to the Man”).
White Board/Poster Helps
A short-time help might be to post the scripture on the board, mark it as Old Testament, page —; New Testament, page —; Book of Mormon, page —; Doctrine & Covenants, page —; or Pearl of Great Price, page —). Posting the page numbers will help them to find the scriptures quickly as they are learning to locate scriptures.
Teach the children the correct abbreviations so that you can eventually use less board space. (You could also post the week's scriptures on a piece of poster board to save white-board space.)
Posting the volume of scripture that the reading is found in will help them to learn which books are in which volume of scripture, and teaching them the songs will help them to learn the chronology of the books in each volume of scripture. You could begin each class by singing the scripture songs to reinforce what they are learning.
I have also found that it helps to
- tell the kids what they are going to be learning from the scripture(s) to be read. This is just a quick synopsis.
- Read the scripture(s).
- When you hit a difficult word, tell them what it means.
- If needed, split the difficult scriptures up phrase by phrase and explain what each phrase means in their language.
- When you have finished reading the scripture(s), talk about what that scripture means in everyday language. This makes the scriptures understandable to (and less difficult for) the children.
Primary Scripture Activity Day
Another idea is to go to an office supply store. You can purchase colored sticky (post-it) flags that are large enough to write the title for each book of scripture. You could have a Primary activity day where the children find each book and post the flags in their scriptures. You could color code the tags to help the children. This would be a great kick-off activity, as you could teach them the scripture songs that day, place the post-it notes, give them scripture-marking pencils, and have them mark certain strategic scriptures or do other scripture-based activities.
Speaking of which, have you seen the colorful pictures that may be purchased to stick on the pages of your scriptures? These are see-through so that you can still read the words beneath the pictures, yet they give a pretty way of learning important scriptures. Unfortunately, these scripture stickers are rather expensive and can be cost-prohibitive.
Illustrated Stories of the Scriptures
When I was a child, my parents purchased a series of books for my brothers and me. They were called The Illustrated Stories from the Book of Mormon, New Testament, and Church History , respectively. Each volume of scripture had a series of 16 books that measured about 2 feet by 1 foot. Each page had a glossy picture followed by several paragraphs that told the scripture story — in detail — at a fourth- or fifth-grade reading level. I do not know whether these are still available on the market today, but as a missionary in 1990, I saw some children with the most recent editions of those books — the kids even had audio tapes or CDs to match!
There was no Old Testament version, but Mom had an old book of Bible stories entitled Hurlbutt's Story of the Bible (or something to that effect). It was a non-denominational book of scripture stories, stuck to the story line, did not try to preach denominational doctrines, and it placed the scripture references at the beginning of each chapter. (My parents tell me that they "caught" me taking the scripture stories and trying to find out where the "real story" was in the scriptures. I was six!) In this way, I learned the stories of the scriptures well before I was able to read the scriptures for myself.
As a result, when I started Seminary, the scriptures were already familiar to me; it was simply a case of understanding the vocabulary and grammar of the "real" scriptures, and learning the chapters and verses became exciting, as I viewed my classes as finally learning the addresses of old friends! By the way, if anyone knows where those Illustrated Stories of the — m ay be purchased today, I'm interested!
My grandmother also sent me a record entitled And a Little Child Shall Lead Them by Lynn A. Bryson and the Lamanite Wards of BYU. It is long out of production (released in approximately 1971-72), and the second volume was never released, but I listened to and sang those songs from the age of 4 to the age of (now almost 40) until I knew them by heart. They truly helped me to learn the messages of the Book of Mormon. (If anyone out there who was involved in the creation of these records is reading this, thank you! I love the first volume! But I am still waiting for the 2nd volume — will you please publish it?)
I don't know whether there are similar musical aids out there, but if there are, they are worth purchasing!
Scripture Chase Helps for Seminary Students
As for Seminary-aged kids, when I was a teenager, I did not understand the concept of the scripture chase my freshman year, and very little emphasis was placed on "mastering" the scriptures. As a result, I did not do well in the scripture chase that year, but I resolved that I would never again come up as lacking in Scripture Mastery. It became my goal to be on the winning team for the regional scripture chase. As the "Hill Wards" had the winning titles for as long as anyone could remember, this seemed an insurmountable task, and even my teachers and classmates told me it could not be done. I refused to believe it, and worked to accomplish that goal.
I told my teachers that if allowed to create my own team, I would only accept members who committed to work their tails off to learn master the 40 scriptures. In order to learn the scriptures, I read each scripture and each scripture-chase prompt from the scripture cards we were given onto a cassette tape. (I recorded classical music in the background so my voice would not be so stark against the background silence and tape hiss. I chose classical because it's supposed to help memory and because it didn't have distracting lyrics.) After each scripture prompt, I waited five seconds before ringing a bell and announcing the correct scripture heading. In the beginning, the goal was to listen to the tapes to familiarize ourselves with the scriptures. Then the goal was to get the correct book. Then the goal was to get the correct chapter and verse — all within the 5 seconds allotted. The final goal was to be able to physically locate the scripture before the 5-second bell sounded.
The first two years I did this, I was told that I could not "stack" teams, but in my senior year, the teacher realized that I was not stacking teams, but teaching my team and working with them all year until we reached our goal. I told her that I would accept anyone at all in the class who wanted to be on a winning team to study with me, but I also asked for the power to tell anyone who did not study that they could not be on my team. I asked for the power to choose people for my team from the study group, and allow the other study group people to organize their own teams.
Throughout the year, anyone in the study group who could come up with code names or memory hooks was encouraged to do so. We did place first in the chase that year, and other teams from our class were either in the winning circle or close to the front of the pack. We had done the impossible — we had beaten "the Hill Wards!"
My younger brothers told me that our winning year gave them the hopes of also beating the hill wards, and by the time they were seniors, our ward was The-Ward-to-Beat. Those who were on my team have told me repeatedly (20 years later!) what a great help my "crazy tapes" were to them that year. Although I was not allowed to "stack" teams in the subsequent years, those who used my study tapes also benefited from them and comment about how much they were helped. By using these tapes, I never earned less than a 100% correct score in any given year.
Hope these ideas help someone, somewhere.
Karen
Stockton, California
Your ideas were a great help, Karen! I especially appreciated your seminary story.
Your advice to put the page number on the board was echoed by “An Elder in New Zealand ,” who sent us a quick sentence of that advice before returning to his missionary labor.
By the way, it was easy to come up with a whole passel of the books you're looking for. When in doubt, look at Amazon. Here's a link to a whole bunch of books related to the words “ Illustrated Stories of the Book of Mormon ”. I would have posted a link to the individual books, but I had no idea which of the bunch were the ones that helped you.
Read on for another viewpoint — this one from an old online friend of mine:
When I read this week's topic, the first thing that came to mind was not waiting until children become teenagers to help them appreciate the scriptures. I'm currently serving in Primary, and helping children love the scriptures is a topic close to my heart. So although not all the ideas below may help reach teenagers now, they may help parents and teachers guide children in becoming teenagers who love the scriptures.
- Encourage children to memorize scriptures. Children love to memorize and they're good at it. When they memorize scriptures, not only do they start a valuable habit, but the word becomes written in their hearts.
- Acknowledge to the children that there are big words and big ideas in the scriptures, and they won't understand everything right away. One time after saying this to the Primary children, I asked, “So does that mean you should just give up and wait to read the scriptures until you're 18?” They knew that was silly! We discussed how it's okay not to understand something, and I assured them that they can learn! Then we talked about strategies for learning, such as asking a parent or grownup, looking up words in the dictionary, and praying to Heavenly Father for understanding.
- Let your love for the scriptures shine! Tell the children often how much you love the scriptures. Bear testimony of gospel principles and insights you've gained from the scriptures. Be an example, which leads to the next point:
- Make your own scripture study as effective as possible:
- Pray beforehand: pray to have the Spirit, pray to be taught. This prayer is abundantly answered!
- Take advantage of online resources, such as http://scriptures.lds.org . Wonderful insights can come from searching on words and phrases. As an example, try searching for the word Lamb (referring to the Son of God) in the Book of Mormon and the New Testament, and notice which two authors use this word the most. Then read 1 Nephi 14:20 - 27 (another sweet evidence of truthfulness of the Book of Mormon).
- Hold scripture study time sacred. Make scripture study such a priority that nothing short of a disaster keeps you from it. Just like you pay tithing first, “pay” your scripture study time first to the Lord, and he will open the windows of heaven with knowledge and revelation from the scriptures.
Elder David A. Bednar gave an amazing CES talk entitled "A Reservoir of Living Water." It would be valuable to adults, and probably to many teenagers, who want to make their scripture study more effective. Click Here (text is at the top; scroll down for audio/video.)
I hope these ideas are helpful!
Kathy Grant
Gilroy, California
Thanks for writing, Kathy. I think it's neat how you start focusing on love of scriptures with young children — telling them that they should keep plugging away even if they don't understand everything at once. Many of us adults could use the same advice when we're struggling through Second Nephi!
I was also a CTR 7 teacher a few years ago and was concerned as well about the children being able to use their scriptures. Although it is nice when a teacher gives a page number, I feel that it is important that everyone know where the different books are located and able to find scripture references without a page number. Here is what I did that seemed to work for my class:
- Using the scriptures from LDS.org and cutting and pasting with my computer, I made a mock-up of a double-page from the scriptures with a copy for each child. I could highlight different things in different colors so everyone could follow what I was talking about. We went over things like what the chapter/verse at the top of each page means, chapters and chapter headings, verses, footnote markings, footnotes and dates (in the BOM). In their own scriptures they found the Topical Guide, Bible dictionary, Joseph Smith Translations and maps.
- I made a sheet for each child to keep with their scriptures that was divided into 4 colored columns. Each column listed the books of the different volumes of scripture. The 1st column was the Old Testament, 2nd was the New Testament, 3rd was the Book of Mormon, and the 4th column was the Doctrine & Convents & Pearl of Great Price (this last one included Sections 1-138, Official Declarations 1 & 2, Moses, Abraham, facsimiles, the Articles of Faith, Joseph Smith Matthew, and Joseph Smith History). At the beginning of each class we would sing the songs from the Children's Song Book of the books of the Old and New Testaments and Book of Mormon. Most of the children took great pride in memorizing the songs and loved to point out when I made a mistake. They always had their lists with them to look at until they had the songs memorized. I always had a few extra for visitors or to replace lost sheets. We would play a short game where I would give them some book and they would have to tell me where it was, later they found the book in their scriptures.
- Before each class I had written on the board three or four scriptures from the lesson that day and left some slips of paper on the chalk tray. As they came in from sacrament meeting (they always got there before I did) they were to look up each scripture and mark it with a piece of paper. That way when we came to that part in the lesson they all were at the right place. Those who could do it fast helped those who had a more difficult time with it. This gave them something constructive to do instead of getting into mischief (usually).
- We talked about the language of the scriptures that might sound strange to them. We learned what Thee, Thou, and Thine meant and learned the different pronunciations for "ye" and "yea" (Ye ends in "e" and has that sound, Yea ends in an "a", so that's how you say it).
- Every class each child got to read at least one verse. Some of the kids were able to read the verse with no problem, but some needed coaching a little. We would stop when they came to a word they didn't know and I would tell them what it meant. By the end of the year, they had all improved from where they had started. I was surprised at how much the children loved reading the scriptures!
- Each child was to bring scriptures to class. If they didn't have them or didn't bring them, they were to go to the library and check some out.
- We talked about scripture etiquette for our class. Scriptures were to stay out for the entire class time (no putting them back in their case after reading a scripture). The scriptures did not get put away until the closing prayer. That way we didn't have all the distractions of students getting their cases out, putting them away before the end of the lesson and the sound of the zippers (a pet peeve of mine in adult classes). We talked about how to care for their scriptures and treat them with the respect they deserve.
I have two suggestions for parents who are buying their children scriptures. First, pay a few extra bucks and get the ones with tabs. It is so much easier for children to learn where things are if they have those little helps. Also, read the scriptures with your children. It makes a huge difference — not only in their ability to find and read scriptures, but also to teach them to love them and make them an integral part of their lives.
Shauna Stephenson
St. George, Utah
Thanks for some great suggestions, Shauna! I especially liked your mock-up pages, showing children exactly what the components of a scripture page are, and what everything meant. We always assume children will learn these things by osmosis, but it doesn't necessarily happen. Your methods will give children a good head start.
Anticipating the time my 10- and 7-year-old kids would have on their hands this summer, I was pondering their needs and I realized this was an opportunity that I had been praying for, to get them acquainted with the scriptures on a more personal level. As I pondered, ideas poured into my head, and this is what I came up with.
I went to the church website looking for a list of the scripture mastery scriptures, and found not just a list, but .pdf files of the scriptures you can print out on cards. These were wonderful because they also had the historical setting, an explanation of the doctrine taught (in simpler terms), and ways to apply it as a missionary, or personally. I quickly printed them all out, and then made each child a four-page chart to keep track of the 25 scriptures in each standard work (Old Testament, New Testament, B of M, D&C).
Each morning, my kids pick a card, look it up (which has been a good way to familiarize them with what is where), underline and read the scripture, study the information on the card, and then come to me to discuss what they understood, and/or ask any questions to help them understand what they read. For every ten scriptures they study I have promised them an ice cream cone (that's where the chart comes in handy — it's kind of like the summer reading program charts at our local library — read this many, get a reward).
I'm not expecting memorization. They'll do that when they get older. But we have had some absolutely wonderful discussions together this summer as they come to discuss these scriptures with me. It has opened up many teaching/learning opportunities and brought the Spirit more fully to our home.
I hope this helps.
Martha
What a great idea, Martha! You're not expecting any more from your children than they're able to give, and your no-stress program is both rewarding and fun. Your note gives one way of addressing the next letter, where Jeannie from Missouri wonders about teaching scriptures to young children at all:
I have mixed feelings about this Primary question. These children are just seven years old and are just learning to read. It seems like a lot of pressure to me. Many adults in gospel doctrine have a hard time finding those scriptures!
My granddaughter has been challenged by her Primary teacher to read the entire Book of Mormon this year (she is 8). By the time she gets home from school at four and does homework, dinner, and other activities, she is so tired that she is crying as she insists on doing the reading that is so hard for her.
Are we expecting too much from these little ones? Will this instill a love of scriptures or dread? I like the idea of singing the songs; I learned the New Testament one as a child and still know it. Using ideas like the songs are more suited to children. Finding the fun and childlike methods seems the way to go to me. At the same time, I recognize the evil they have to live with every day and so we can't start too soon. Or can we?
As you see, I have all the questions and not very many answers.
Jeannie from Missouri
You make a valid point, Jeannie! Although children do need to start early to learn their scriptures and arm themselves against the evils of the world, teaching them to dread the scriptures is worse than not teaching them the scriptures at all. The Apostle Paul advocated “milk before meat.” If we teach children to enjoy the scriptures when presented to them in an age-appropriate way, they will naturally progress to the meat when they put away childish things.
Our last letter is one more suggestion on the study that started this topic in the first place.
This is regarding Christine Hair's request for the study that showed "95% of youth that practiced personal scripture study and prayers daily went on to receive the Melchizedek priesthood, go through the temple, serve missions and be married in the temple." Brent L. Top of BYU is the man to ask. I have several of his articles, and the one that comes closest to matching Christine's request is "Religion, Mental Health, and the Latter-day Saints." It was published in the Religious Studies Center at BYU. Brother Top may have other articles that more closely reflect Sister Hair's question.
A reader in Sedona, Arizona
Thanks for letting us know, Sedona! I tried to find the article by googling it just now, and was unsuccessful — but that doesn't mean everyone else will be. Apparently Brent L. Top is the man when it comes to these surveys. If you can get hold of any of his articles, they might help .
Okay, people, we'll have a new topic next week. Thanks for helping us out this time. Perhaps if we all work together, we can sing our children to a livelong familiarity with the scriptures.
Until next week — Kathy
"They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."
Isaiah 40:31
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