What memory and matching games actually teach

Matching pairs is the game every family already owns, usually with a few cards missing.

It is worth more than it looks, though not for the reason it is usually sold.

What it does not do

Let us get this out of the way, because plenty of apps imply otherwise.

Memory games do not give a child a better memory in general. Practising a card game makes you better at that card game. It does not raise how much a child can hold in their head across everything else, and any product promising brain training for a four-year-old is selling something it cannot deliver.

We build a learning app with ten matching activities in it, so we are hardly neutral. That is still the honest position.

What it does do

Something narrower and genuinely useful: it gives a child repeated practice at holding something in mind while doing something else.

That is working memory, and it is the thing being used when a child has to remember where the cat card was while turning over a different one. It is also the thing being used when you say "go upstairs, get your socks, and bring the blue jumper" and only the socks come back.

Turning cards over is not brain training. It is one small, pleasant place where that skill gets used on purpose.

The other half is plainer still: matching is noticing that two things are the same, which is the same sorting skill underneath shapes, colours and eventually letters.

Start with four cards

The most common mistake is starting too big. A full set of twenty cards to a three-year-old is not a challenge, it is a wall.

Start below where you think they are. A game that is won is a game that gets played again.

Face-up matching counts. If turning cards over is too hard, lay them all face up and just find the pairs. That is the same noticing skill with the memory part removed, and it is where a lot of children need to start.

Ways to make it work

• Let them win, but not obviously. Four-year-olds notice.
• Say the thing out loud as you turn it. Naming what you see helps remember it, and it is free vocabulary.
• Use pictures they care about. Their own photos beat any shop-bought set.
• Stop while it is still fun. Ending early is what makes them ask again.

Where an app fits

The screen version has two real advantages: nothing goes missing under the sofa, and the difficulty steps up on its own without anyone counting cards.

The card version has one advantage that outweighs both, which is that somebody else is playing. Taking turns, waiting, and losing without it ruining the afternoon are the things actually being learned at this age, and a tablet teaches none of them.

So use the app when you have not got a spare ten minutes, and the cards when you have.

Our matching activities include memory pairs, silhouettes and hidden-object scenes, all read aloud.