Level 1, free always.
Most faith formation gives children the vocabulary of belief without giving them access to the living thing underneath it.
Reaching is a formation system that uses the Science of Reading (the gold standard in literacy instruction) to teach children to give children the tools they need for literacy and developing a relationship with God simultaneously.
Jesus, who died for our sins. The God who made the world and called it good.
That is what your child reads here. That is what forms your family together.
Built for busy families, homeschoolers, churches, youth programs, and more. Designed with learning differences in mind.
The Theological Spine
Seven levels. One arc. Theologically complete at every stage.
Reaching holds Scripture as the ultimate authority for faith and practice. The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed serve as the ecumenical floor the ancient consensual summary of what Scripture teaches that Christians across every tradition and every century have held together. From Beloved for ages 2-4 through Level 6 at age 12, each level is built around a central theological conviction from the historic Christian faith.
Level 0
Beloved Jesus Loves You Right Now
Ages 2-4
▼
The Big Idea
Before a child can read a single word, they can know three things in their body: Jesus loves them personally and specifically, every feeling they have is real and can be brought honestly to God, and their words are sacred. Feelings are real and welcome before God, but they are not ultimate Scripture is the authority, Christ is the center, and the Spirit forms our emotional lives toward truth, love, repentance, and holiness. Beloved is formation at the root.
What the Child Receives
Five board books read in the lap. Thirty formation cards for the parent. Hand-painted wooden peg dolls for play and prayer. Three tactile prayer objects. A parent guide grounded in Scripture, theology, social emotional learning, and early speech development. Delivered as The Beloved Box, a quarterly subscription.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are.
1 John 3:1
Level 1
Wonder God Made Everything Good
Pre-K / K
▼
The Big Idea
God is the creator of everything and everything He made, He called good. The child who reads these books is part of that good creation. They are made, known, and held.
What the Child Learns
God made me. God made the world. Every living thing is held by God. Creation speaks and God is speaking through it. Rest is holy.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
Genesis 1:1, 31
Level 2
Belonging Made in His Image
Grade 1
▼
The Big Idea
Every person every single one is made in the image of God. Imago Dei. This is not earned. It cannot be lost. It is the foundation of how we see ourselves and every person we will ever meet.
What the Child Learns
I am known by name. No one is outside God's love. How I treat a person is how I treat God. The Father runs to us before we are ready.
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them.
Genesis 1:27
Level 3
Brokenness The World Is Not the Way It Should Be
Grade 2
▼
The Big Idea
Something went wrong and human beings are not only the victims of that wrongness but participants in it. Reaching gives children language for both truths: the world is broken, our own hearts turn away from God, grief is real, and God has not walked away. Lament is an act of faith. Repentance is its companion.
What the Child Learns
God comes looking for us when we hide. I can cry out to God in lament and come to God in repentance. Sin is not just rule-breaking it is turning away. God's faithfulness does not depend on mine.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One.
Psalm 22:1, 3
Level 4
Jesus The Word Became Flesh
Grade 3
▼
The Big Idea
God did not stay far away. He entered the world He made fully human, fully God. He wept. He calmed storms. He stayed on the cross. He rose. The cross was not merely a demonstration of love it accomplished something real: forgiveness, reconciliation with God, the defeat of death, and the beginning of new creation.
What the Child Learns
Jesus knows what it feels like to be human. The cross accomplished real reconciliation not only demonstrated love. Death is not the last word. Because Jesus lives, I have hope that does not depend on circumstances.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
John 1:14
Level 5
Love in Action The Upside-Down Kingdom
Grade 4
▼
The Big Idea
The kingdom of God operates by a different logic. The greatest serves. The enemy is loved. The neighbor is whoever needs you. Small acts of love are not wasted they are seeds of the new creation.
What the Child Learns
Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. Love your enemies. My neighbor is the person right in front of me. I am salt. I am light. Not someday now.
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8
Level 6
Mission Here Am I, Send Me
Grade 5
▼
The Big Idea
The story is still being written and the child is part of it. They are not too young, too ordinary, or too small. God calls people like them. The child is sent to be present as salt and light, and to bear witness to the Jesus who entered the world, wept, rose, and is still at work.
What the Child Learns
I am sent to be present and to bear witness. To live in a way that points to Jesus, and to speak of him when the moment comes. I am not alone a great cloud of witnesses surrounds me. Every act of love and witness is a seed of the new creation.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me."
Isaiah 6:8
The Floor
Reaching holds Scripture as the ultimate authority for faith and practice. The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed serve as the ecumenical floor of the curriculum the ancient consensual summary of what Scripture teaches that Christians across every tradition and every century have held together. The creeds derive their authority from Scripture and point back to it. On emotional formation: feelings are real and welcome before God, but they are not ultimate; Scripture is the authority, Christ is the center, and the Spirit forms our emotional lives toward truth, love, repentance, and holiness.
The Reading Science
How Reaching teaches children to read.
Reaching is built on the Science of Reading the most comprehensive body of research in education and the six core principles of structured literacy that the research supports, informed by the Orton-Gillingham research tradition throughout.
Most children's Bible resources are not designed with reading science in mind. Most decodable readers have nothing to say about God. Reaching is built to do both without compromising either.
The Simple View of Reading How Comprehension Works
Word Recognition
▼
The ability to decode printed words accurately and automatically. This is built through explicit, systematic phonics instruction teaching the code of the English language directly, not through guessing or context clues.
Reaching builds word recognition through a carefully sequenced phonics progression across 12 stages from single consonants all the way to roots and morphology.
Phonics · Phonemic Awareness · FluencyLanguage Comprehension
▼
The ability to understand spoken language vocabulary, background knowledge, reasoning, and the ability to make meaning from text. A child who can decode but does not understand what they read is not yet a reader.
Reaching builds language comprehension through rich theological vocabulary, formation questions, and the Layer 2 read-aloud companions which expose children to complex ideas in beautiful language.
Vocabulary · Background Knowledge · ReasoningWord Recognition × Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension
This is the Simple View of Reading. Both strands are required. Reaching builds both simultaneously.
The Six Core Principles of Structured Literacy in Every Reaching Lesson
Explicit
Every phonics pattern is taught directly. Children never guess. They are shown the code and practice it.
Systematic
Patterns are introduced in a deliberate sequence simpler to complex, cumulative and connected.
Cumulative
Every new stage builds on what came before. Nothing is abandoned. Everything is reinforced.
Multisensory
See it. Say it. Tap it. The virtual card decks and Elkonin boxes bring the kinesthetic dimension to every session.
Decodable
Every word in every Reaching reader is either decodable at the child's current stage or pre-taught as a sight word.
Diagnostic
The Reaching Reading Scale lets families place a child at the right stage and move at the right pace not grade-level assumptions.
The Reaching Reading Scale 12 Stages
1 Just Beginning to Read
2 Reading First Words
3 Reading Simple Sentences
4 Reading Short Passages
5 Reading with Confidence
6 Reading Independently
7 Reading with Fluency
8 Reading with Expression
9 Reading Longer Words
10 Reading Any Word
11 Reading to Learn
12 Reading for Life
Prayer Formation
Teaching children to actually talk to God.
Reaching holds Scripture as the ultimate authority. Every prayer practice is rooted in Scripture and the historic Christian tradition. Beginning with Beloved at age two through Level 6 at age twelve, fifteen distinct practices give every child and family a complete vocabulary for turning toward God.
Scripture as the Authority
Feelings are real and welcome before God, but they are not ultimate. Scripture is the authority, Christ is the center, and the Spirit forms our emotional lives toward truth, love, repentance, and holiness. Every prayer practice is measured against this.
Connection Over Compliance
A child who prays because they are told to has been formed in compliance. A child who has discovered that God is actually there has been formed in relationship. Reaching aims at the second.
Honest Emotion, Led by Scripture
God gave us every feeling we have. Reaching teaches children to bring the hard things to God honestly and to let Scripture, not emotion, be the authority that teaches us what is true.
A Vocabulary That Grows
Fifteen prayer practices across seven levels. By Level 6 a child has a full prayer vocabulary for every season of life ahead wonder, grief, lament, service, witness, and availability.
Select a Level to See Its Prayer Practices
Level 0
Beloved Five Embodied Forms · Ages 2-4
▼
Form 1
Talking to Jesus
Your own words, said out loud, to someone who is present and listening. A child says: Jesus, I am here. That is a real prayer and the beginning of a lifetime of conversation with God.
AnchorMatthew 19:14 Let the little children come to me.
Form 2
Bringing Feelings to Jesus
Every emotion is real and welcome before God not because feelings are authoritative, but because God receives what is true. The child brings what is actually happening, not the performed version. This is the foundation of honest prayer for a lifetime.
Anchor1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Form 3
Using Words to Pray
Talking to Jesus out loud in ordinary language in ordinary moments. Not formal. Not scripted. Just the child's own voice directed toward someone who loves to hear it.
AnchorJohn 1:1 In the beginning was the Word.
Form 4
Praying for Another by Name
Say someone's name to Jesus. That is the whole prayer. A two-year-old who says a loved one's name to God is praying one of the oldest and most faithful prayers available. Love turned outward.
Anchor1 Timothy 2:1 I urge prayers for all people.
Form 5
Breath Prayer and Stillness
Breathe in: God, you are here. Breathe out: I am loved. Sixty seconds of stillness. The body praying. Rooted in the fourth-century desert tradition of the early church. A self-regulation practice and a prayer practice in the same movement.
AnchorPsalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God.
Level 1
Wonder Five Foundational Forms · Pre-K / K
▼
Form 6
Noticing Prayer
Stop. Look. Receive the world as a gift. No words required just attention directed toward God and what he has made. The oldest and most available form of prayer. Children are natural at it.
AnchorPsalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God.
Form 7
Talking Prayer
Your own words. No script. No formula. God already knows your name just talk to him the way you would talk to someone who loves you and is actually there.
AnchorPsalm 139:1 Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
Form 8
Breath Prayer
Breathe in: God, you are here. Breathe out: I am held. One of the oldest prayer practices in the Christian tradition rooted in the truth that God breathed his own life into us. Always available.
AnchorActs 17:28 In him we live and move and have our being.
Form 9
Listening Prayer
Two minutes of stillness. No agenda. No output required. The mind resting on God. Rooted in Scripture and the historic contemplative tradition of the church Christians being quiet before God, not an empty mystical practice.
AnchorPsalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God.
Form 10
Gratitude Prayer
Not performed thanksgiving genuine noticing of what is actually good today. Small things count. Naming what is good and saying it to God is the practice of Sabbath delight that God himself modeled in Genesis 2.
AnchorPsalm 107:1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
Level 2
Belonging Turning Outward · Grade 1
▼
Form 11
Bringing What Is True
Not the version that sounds right what is actually true. One honest sentence about what is really happening today, said to God without making it sound better first. Feelings are real and welcome before God; Scripture teaches us what to do with them.
AnchorPsalm 139:23 Search me, God, and know my heart.
Form 12
Praying for Another by Name
Say one person's name to God and one true thing about their life. The specificity is the practice. This is how Paul prayed, and how children discover that prayer turns love outward.
Anchor1 Timothy 2:1 I urge prayers for all people.
Level 3
Brokenness Honest Prayer · Grade 2
▼
Form 13
Lament
Lament is not the opposite of faith it is one of its most honest expressions. One third of the Psalms are laments. Some feelings need comfort; some need confession; some need correction; some need healing. Scripture, not emotion, is the authority that teaches us the difference.
AnchorPsalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Form 14
Borrowing the Words of Scripture
When your own words run out, use the words the Psalms already provide. Borrowing Scripture for prayer is letting God's Word form our prayers which is exactly how Scripture intends to function in the life of a believer.
AnchorPsalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Level 4
Jesus Praying to Someone Present and Alive · Grade 3
▼
Form 15
Speaking Directly to Jesus
Not to God in the abstract to Jesus, by name. The one who got hungry and tired. The one who wept at Lazarus's grave. The one who rose. Jesus is not a memory or a theological concept. He is a living person who is listening. The incarnation makes prayer personal in a way nothing else does.
AnchorJohn 14:19 Because I live, you also will live.
Levels 5 - 6
Love in Action and Mission Prayer That Sends · Grades 4-5
▼
Praying Before an Act of Service
Ten seconds before the act: Jesus, help me see this person the way you see them. Use this. The prayer before the action connects the small thing to the kingdom rather than to personal virtue. It submits the action to God's purposes.
AnchorMatthew 25:40 Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.
The Prayer of Availability
God, here I am. I am not sure I am ready. But I am here. If you want to send me, I am willing. The oldest prayer of mission in Scripture. Not a declaration of competence a declaration of presence. The sent person is sent to live faithfully and to bear witness to Jesus.
AnchorIsaiah 6:8 Here am I. Send me.
The Goal
Not a child who knows how to pray correctly. A child who knows how to turn toward God bringing their feelings honestly, tested by Scripture, led by the Spirit toward truth, repentance, and holiness.
Beginning in Beloved at age two and continuing through six reading levels, your child accumulates fifteen distinct ways to come to God in their body, in their feelings, in wonder, in honesty, in grief, in gratitude, in silence, and in action. Scripture is the authority. Christ is the center. The Spirit forms our emotional lives toward truth, love, repentance, and holiness.