It will take you a few minutes to set up, but other than that there is very little prep time.  It only takes about 5 minutes of review and recitation each day and we’ve built that into our homeschool morning time.  It’s a pretty simple system.

Supplies to set up a scripture memorization system:

Second, write out the scriptures (or this would work for any quote or poem you’d like to memorize) on the index cards. Each verse gets it’s own index card.

Then you’ll memorize and review the verses according to this schedule:

Daily–Review this scripture every day
Odd–Review on odd numbered days of the month
Even–Review on even numbered days of the month
Mon-Friday: Review one day each week (you could include weekends, of course, but we don’t generally get to it on weekends)
Days of the month–Review once per month on the date

It will take weeks for you to have a verse to review in each of these slots, but as you add more verses, you’ll eventually have cards in every slot and even multiple cards behind each of the numbered date tabs.

Place the first verse behind the Daily tab.  Each day for the following week, review only that verse.  You’ll have it memorized in no time.  When the next week rolls around, place a new verse behind the Daily tab and move the verse from the first week to either the Odd or Even tab.  Continue in this fashion, moving older verses through the Odd/Even tabs, the Day of the Week tabs and eventually settling them into one of the monthly date slots, to be reviewed each month.

For example, let’s pretend today is Wednesday, August 5th.  I would first read through our daily verse aloud, then the kids and I repeat it together aloud and then they would each repeat it individually.  Because today is the 5th we’d also review the verse behind the Odd tab. Then we move on to the verse behind the Wednesday tab and finally the verse behind the 5 tab.

As a side note, because my kids are still pretty young I have them memorize smaller sections of long verses. I highlight the sections we focus on to help me remember what to review.  As they get older, we may go back through and do the full verses.

Make sense? Completely confusing?  I’m happy to clarify any questions you have!

I promise that typing out this method takes much longer than the time we actually spend reviewing.  🙂

You can find sets of free 25 3×5 cards for the Old Testament and New Testament all ready for you here.