Beginner tap will send you to the dance store or maybe the local mall to get a pair of classic patent leather Mary Janes or black oxfords with taps on them. The shoes can tie, buckle or snap. Some come with elastic so they are easy to pull on and off but fit snugly while they are in use. The taps are usually simple metal disks attached to the toe and heel of the sole. More complex, amplified taps like TeleTone models are used by more advanced dancers. At the beginner level, the steps, the rhythm and the sound are challenge enough.
Clogging is for everyone and kid's clogs are usually white bucks with taps on them. The taps come in two styles: buck taps and regular taps. Regular taps stop at the edge of the sole. Buck taps cover the toe of the shoe partly with an extended steel flange. They make a satisfying loud sound and they help to protect the shoe, so buck taps are the most common type for kids' clogging shoes. For advanced performers who may do fancy moves on their toes, the buck taps are too slippery.
Traditional Irish hard shoes don't have aluminum taps. They have resin or fiberglass on the soles to make the sound as the performer marks the beat. Before modern materials were available, the sound came from wood or stiff leather hammered on with nails. Some Irish fusion dance troupes use regular metal taps to amplify sound when they are doing a dance that might take as much from tap tradition as Irish tradition. Kids who are ranked beginners might be able to use regular tap shoes for step dancing practice. But as they progress, they will be expected to use real hard shoes with resin or glass taps. The interesting link between tap and step is the American origin of tap dancing. It began as a form of African slave communication and incorporated elements of Irish step dance and clogging that were popular in the south at the time.
Strictly speaking, flamenco shoes don't have taps. They have nails. The style of dance is learned by the novice in hard-soled shoes that can make noise when tapped and pounded against a wooden floor. Children may graduate to Mexican folklorico shoes--character shoes with rubber toes and heels with a sliver of aluminum and nails at the outer edge of heel and toe. Professional flamenco shoes, used by advanced students, have "taps" made of nails. Some flamenco shoemakers in Spain, where most professional flamenco shoes are made, use more than 70 nails in each heel of a pair of shoes.