I think it is kind of interesting that my son and I find it useful to use a rhythm when we memorize lines. I have always done this and found it helpful as a child when I memorized long Bible verses. Nobody taught me to do this, but in my head, it was as if I had a metronome going and I was able to memorize things quickly by using a beat.
When my son needed to memorize lines of over 300 words at age 4 1/2 for his musical theater class, I clapped out a steady beat as I read the lines to him and he memorized very quickly this way. He says he still uses a beat to memorize sometimes, but not always. A few times when he had to memorize something quickly, I noticed that he could read the material once and he could easily tell me the the gist of the whole thing, and then he would work on getting it word for word. This is different from what I do when I memorize. I take one paragraph at a time to a beat until I have it down perfectly, then move on to the next paragraph.
Did you see the movie "Akela and The Bee?" That's exactly what the main character did when memorizing spelling words. And she did while jumping rope!
