Working memory games for kids

Working memory is the mental notepad that holds a few things in mind while you use them — a phone number you are about to type, the steps of an instruction, or where you just saw your shoe.

In Brain Garden, Memory Garden asks your child to repeat a path of blooming flowers, Bunny Hop asks whether the bunny is back on an earlier square, and Music Echo asks them to play a melody back. Each game adapts so the challenge stays just right.

What the research says

Children do get better at memory games with practice, and that improvement carries over to other tasks that look similar. A large review of working memory training in children by Sala and Gobet (2020) found no reliable gains in broader skills such as intelligence, reading or maths.

Simons and colleagues (2016) reached the same conclusion for brain-training programmes in general: people improve on what they practise, but there is little good evidence of benefits far beyond it. So we treat these games as fun practice for the skill itself, not as a way to raise IQ or grades.

Sources:

• Sala & Gobet (2020), Psychonomic Bulletin & Review: working memory training in children
• Simons et al. (2016), Psychological Science in the Public Interest: do brain-training programs work?

Try it at home, off-screen

• Shopping-list game: a grown-up says 4 things to buy. Repeat them back in order.
• Say a 5-digit number backwards.
• Play “I went to the market and bought…”, adding one thing each turn.