Rhythm and timing game for kids

Rhythm and timing are about moving in step with a beat — clapping along to a song, marching in time, jumping rope or dancing with friends.

In Beat Keeper your child taps along with a steady drum, keeps the beat going when the drum goes quiet, and echoes short rhythms. The tempo rises and the room for error shrinks as your child improves.

What the research says

Beat Keeper practises timing and coordination, and children get better at similar rhythm tasks. But a careful review by Sala and Gobet (2020) found that, in well-controlled studies, music training does not improve children’s general thinking skills or school results.

Some research links rhythm and reading, but it is mostly correlational, plus small trials with dyslexic children such as Flaugnacco and colleagues (2015). That is not enough to say rhythm games improve reading or attention. Enjoy music and rhythm for their own sake — that is reason enough.

Sources:

• Sala & Gobet (2020), Memory & Cognition: music training and children’s cognition
• Flaugnacco et al. (2015), PLoS ONE: music training and reading in dyslexia

Try it at home, off-screen

• Clap along to a song, then keep clapping when it’s muted.
• Make up a rhythm with a spoon and a pot for someone to copy.
• March around the room and clap on every second step.