 Have you noticed that when we talk we usually gesture? Our new study shows for the first time that one type of these gestures, called beats, can help develop children's storytelling ability. Beats are those gestures that help to mark this course when you speak, for example when I do like this. Specifically, we wanted to know whether children will tell stories with a better narrative structure after seeing gestures. So we took five to six year old children and we asked them to retell two world-less cartoons. After that we had them watch six short stories, either with or without beat gestures, and then we asked them to retell two more cartoons. So we found that children who observe beat gestures perform more complex narratives than those who did not see gestures. Our findings are important not only to understand child development, but also for teachers working on a storytelling.