Education

Back in the early 1980s, an organization called Light of the World Ministries put out a Bible memory course: Light of the World Scripture Memory Course.

The basic course consisted of five cassettes with 100 Bible verses. The advanced course consisted of fifteen cassettes with 300 Bible verses. The Bible verses were grouped into ten on a given topic, covering such topics as faith, healing, and prayer.

Memorization in this course occurred by repetition—as the old Latin saying goes, repetitio mater studiorum (repetition is the mother of studies). Yet the approach taken in this course was not one of mere rote repetition.

The idea was to hear ten Bible verses on a given topic, with a pause after each verse to give the listener time to review the verse in one’s mind or to say it out loud. Once all ten verses had been presented in this way, then the verses were hammered home by repeating them each three times, with no pauses.

While this approach is certainly useful for meditating on Scripture and internalizing its teaching, this is also an effective way to memorize Scripture. Further, this approach could be applied as a teaching tool for many other texts. [Read more…] about Light of the World Bible Memory Course

I have a special-needs son and often have to watch him outside, as when we go for a walk together or drive around in my pickup (he loves to go for car rides). As a result, I’m often listening to books from Audible on my iPhone when I’m with my son.

These books can be quite interesting, so I sometimes discuss them with friends and colleagues. When I’m in the middle of listening to such a book, I often tell the person I’m speaking with that I’m “reading” such-and-such a book. But am I really reading it? Would it be more accurate to say the I’m listening to the book on my iPhone?

Accuracy is fine as far as it goes, but I’m no fan of scrupulous accuracy. So I don’t feel any compunction when I tell people I’m reading a book when I’m listening to it being read. That said, the distinction between going through a book by listening to it versus actually running one’s eyes over the text and extracting the information from it that way is interesting and one I’d like to explore in this article briefly. [Read more…] about Is Listening the Same as Reading?