Working memory games for kids and simple everyday tips

What working memory is

Researchers describe working memory as the ability to hold information in mind and mentally work with it. It is one of the executive functions, along with stopping an impulse and switching between ways of thinking (Diamond 2013).

The sticky note picture works well. The note is small, and what’s written on it fades fast. When something new gets added, something else often falls off. Long-term memory is more like a filing cabinet: grandma’s birthday, a favorite song and the rules of Candy Land live there.

In a game of Memory, both work together. Where the second cat card is lies on the sticky note. What a cat looks like comes from the filing cabinet. When this article talks about memory games, it means the sticky note.

How a full sticky note shows up at home

A working memory that fills up quickly rarely looks like a memory problem. More often the child seems dreamy, messy or like they aren’t listening. Some typical moments:

• You send your child to get their slippers. They stand in the middle of their room and can’t remember why they came.
• Adding numbers in their head, the first step works, but the result is gone before the next number comes in.
• With “Put on your jacket, grab your backpack and wait by the door,” only the first or only the last part happens.
• While writing, the rest of the sentence disappears while your child is still spelling the first word.
• Halfway through a game, they lose track of whose turn it is or what a certain card means.

This happens to every child sometimes, and to adults too, especially when tired or distracted. It usually has nothing to do with laziness or bad attitude. The note was full, or something else wrote over it.

How working memory grows with age

Executive function skills develop slowly. The process starts in infancy and continues into early adulthood, according to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University in its guide with activities for every age (Harvard Center on the Developing Child 2014).

So a preschooler can hold far less in mind at once than a fourth grader. And children of the same age differ a lot. If your six-year-old can’t manage a direction with three parts, that is often simply a matter of age.

A more useful question than comparing with siblings or classmates: What can my child do reliably today, and what would be the next small step? The games below are built around exactly that.

Everyday tips: take some load off the sticky note

Before you practice anything, try the opposite: put less on the note. Success becomes more likely, and you argue less. The most important rule is one direction at a time.

1. Connect first, then ask: Say your child’s name, wait until they look at you, then speak. Things called out from the kitchen in passing often never make it onto the note.
2. One direction at a time: “Get your shoes.” When the shoes are there, the next sentence follows.
3. Have them repeat it: Ask your child to say the task back in their own words. You hear right away whether it landed, and your child has said it out loud once.
4. Picture cards: For fixed routines like getting dressed or brushing teeth, hang small pictures on the wall in the right order. Then nothing has to stay in their head. One look is enough.
5. Lists: Older children write down homework, shopping items or partial results in math. That’s not cheating. Adults do the same.

These supports don’t take anything away from your child. They keep the head free for what matters right now, like the math problem instead of the question of what came next.

Working memory games for kids to play together

Almost every family already knows games where you have to remember something and keep working with it. The Harvard guide lists Concentration (the card game Memory), clapping rhythms, songs that add on with every verse and packing-a-suitcase games as activities that challenge working memory (Harvard Center on the Developing Child 2014). Many kids enjoy these anyway.

With the eyes: In Picture Recall, your child looks at a sheet full of pictures for a moment and then tells you what was on it. In Rebuild the Dots, they see a color pattern only briefly and then rebuild it from memory with buttons.

With numbers: In Roll and Circle, your child has to keep the number on the die in mind while searching the sheet for dots. It’s mental work on a small scale without looking like math.

With the ears: In Clap Echo, you clap a short rhythm and your child claps it back. I Packed My Suitcase is a classic: each player repeats the whole list and adds one more item.

Closest to daily life is the Instruction Chain. Your child hears two or three small tasks, says them back and does them in order. What often goes wrong on school mornings becomes a game with no time pressure.

You’ll find more games like these in our memory games for kids.

Make it harder slowly, without overwhelming

A review of programs for children aged 4 to 12 found that what made a difference was regular practice with demands that slowly increased (Diamond & Lee 2011). The Harvard guide also advises steadily increasing the complexity of games for school-age kids.

1. Start easy: Pick a level your child can handle for sure. Three pictures, a rhythm with four claps, two things in the suitcase.
2. Step up only after success: When a level works three times in a row, add one piece. One more picture, one more clap, one more task.
3. Going back is fine: If it gets too hard, go back one level. That’s part of the game.
4. Switch roles: Let your child clap the rhythm or give the tasks. Now you have to remember something, and your child checks whether you get it right.
5. Stop while it’s still fun: A few minutes a day is enough. Better to keep them looking forward to tomorrow than to play one round too many today.

Many kids love it when grown-ups slip up. If you “forget” something on purpose while packing the suitcase, your child laughs, and the next round starts in a good mood.

What working memory training can and can’t do

Some computer programs and apps promise that training working memory will also improve focus and school performance. The research on this is sobering. It’s worth knowing before you put money or hope into it.

One meta-analysis found that training reliably improved performance on memory tasks similar to the ones practiced. For verbal working memory, these gains were gone at a later follow-up. The authors found no convincing evidence of transfer to other skills such as arithmetic or word reading (Melby-Lervåg & Hulme 2013).

A larger review of 87 publications came to the same conclusion three years later: short-term, narrow effects on similar memory tasks, but no reliable improvements in reading comprehension, arithmetic or reasoning (Melby-Lervåg, Redick & Hulme 2016).

For children with ADHD, the picture is similar. In a meta-analysis of 16 trials, cognitive training improved working memory on tests. When ratings came from people who didn’t know which child had trained, only a small effect on ADHD symptoms remained, and none showed up for academic performance (Cortese et al. 2015). A newer meta-analysis of computer training also found better working memory scores but no effect on overall ADHD symptoms (Westwood et al. 2023).

What does this mean for memory games at home? Your child will get better at the games you play together. Whether that carries over to spelling tests or math is open, and based on these studies rather unlikely. So play them as time together and as practice in listening and looking closely, not as a guarantee of better grades. For school days, the everyday tips above are the more direct route, because they work right where things get stuck.

When to get support

Memory games and everyday tips are meant for family life. They don’t replace a diagnosis or professional care. Talk to your child’s pediatrician if any of these apply:

• For months, your child has been forgetting much more than other kids their age, at home and at school or daycare.
• The school reaches out repeatedly, for example because your child can’t follow directions in class.
• Your child is struggling and says things like “I’m stupid” or “I can’t remember anything.”
• Besides forgetting, you also notice a lot of restlessness, impulsive behavior or trouble with reading and math.

The pediatrician can look at what’s behind the difficulties or refer you to a specialist. It could be ADHD, a learning disability, a hearing problem or something else entirely. The CDC explains how ADHD is diagnosed and says the first step is talking with a healthcare provider. Information and support groups for parents are offered by CHADD.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading

• How to help a child focus: what you can do today