Chess is Child's Play: Teaching Techniques That Work Kindle Edition

My two year old had been BEGGING me to play chess after seeing it in a book so I ordered a set and this book. The book proceeds at just the right pace for a young child or any beginner with very discreet steps. I like that after learning the names of the pieces, it starts off with teaching how the rook moves first (versus the pawn). This is the easiest piece to learn first. The only problem I’ve run into is due to my son’s maturity level. He asks to “play chess” all of the time and I’ve never made or pushed the lessons/mini games BUT once we got to the “taking” of tools instead of just learning the moves, he became resistant because the piece was his. Typical two year old there! All in all, it’s a great and very methodical book. The authors address many common problems that crop up along the way, too. I highly recommend it.

I am teaching my 4 and 3 year old nieces chess. When I tried to sit down for my first lesson with them, it was a disaster. I tried teaching pawns first not realizing that they are the most complicated piece to learn first. I had taken for granted how complicated and confusing all of the pieces and rules of chess would be for someone so young. So, I found this book on amazon, and I read it and gave it a shot. The book organizes the game in a way that allows the child to learn the game a piece at a time. And along the way, there are "mini-games" that are included that build on concepts in order to get a feel playing the pieces without the complication of playing a whole game. I think this is a brilliant way to teach young kids how to play. When I sat down for the second lesson, I was prepared, and we had fun. Kept the lesson short. And the third and fourth lessons have been going well so far. I plan on going through each of the sections of the book in order and see how it goes. But so far, my nieces are responding well. Highly recommend this book for teaching young kids. I would have been lost without it. And I have been playing chess for 30 years!

I'm a chess player myself, however I had no idea how to teach my children. My 3 years old daughter picked up all the pieces names, and playing happily with the first stages of the progress (moving the Rook). My 6 years old is really starting to get the hang of the fundamentals of chess.I am really happy with the teaching progression in the book, it makes sense to me, and it seems to be adequate to my children as well. Some of the tips in the book are really valuable as to avoid the child loosing interest (as could have happen with my younger one when I tried to push too hard).As a chess player myself I can recommend this book to a chess player parent who is looking for a good structure for teaching chess to one's children.

Having spent several months reviewing this text, I recommend it to anyone who has ever tried to give beginners instruction in the game of chess.Firstly, the mini games. Anyone who has ever tried to get more than one child on the same sheet of music knows that it can sometimes be like having a bowling alley installed in your head. These mini games are designed to keep your child's interest while craftily getting them to practice the lesson over and over. Quite unique and fun for the parent and child at the same time.Secondly, the order of the lessons. For me the biggest struggle was keeping the attention of any child while I ground away at each piece movement usually starting with the pawn. It seems so simple to to me now that you would start instruction with THE ROOK and move up in difficulty from there. This book moves so fluidly from one lesson to the next and gradually eases your child up into tougher scenarios.Lastly, how the piece movements are taught. From rook to pawn. One short example. As a child I had great challenges understanding the movement of the knight because I was taught to make an "L" movement. How big was that "L" supposed to be again? Two up, one over? Three or four? It was the hardest piece for me by far. Laura and Bill's explanation of just having the knight "hop" the fence and land on the opposite color smacked me with a knight awakening. How logical and simple. How PURE! My daughter has no traces of the knight troubles that I had.This book is a must have in your shelf for anyone (experienced teacher or patient parent) that wants to spread the joy of chess. There is not a better priced chess text given the gems contained within.

My five-year-old daughter was interested in learning chess and I was looking for a system to teach her with. This book teaches chess incrementally and every chapter builds on skills from the last. She took the lessons from the first page and quickly began asking for chess lessons rather than bedtime stories. She was playing proper games within weeks. I credit the books methodical yet unintimidating style for her newfound love for the game. I look forward to many years of chess with her. My thanks to the authors.

I love that the authors understand that teaching needs to incorporate fun, kindness and leave anticipation for the next lesson. Mini-games is a brilliant concept. Best chess for children book I've seen. Our 5 year old grandson asks to "play chess" above screen games. Since moving the knight is still confusing, we set up all pieces EXCEPT the knight and enjoy chess together.

I'm no chess master, but this book is. My son and I use this as our reference.He loves playing chess. Limit the time to maximize your learning per the book. If they get bored, that is what they remember.The book is broken up into sections by age and has: recommendations for teaching all the pieces and their movements one at a time.Micro games set ups, to teach specific skills and thought processes.We liked it so much we gave one to my sister too.

Excellent Book for Teaching Young Children Chess. I was impressed with how the lessons are laid out. An excellent book to start teaching young children how to play chess.

I wish I'd bought this book before trying to teach my four year old to play chess. I thought because I knew how to play chess that it'd be easy, and I'd read various things about teaching pawns first, but it didn't really work. Going through this book has worked much better.It starts with rooks, then bishops and the queen and the concepts of taking pieces and attacking and defending pieces, moving onto a mini-game where you each have those pieces and just try and take the opponents' pieces. It then moves on to the king, check and checkmate, which were concepts that I'd found it hard to explain, but which my son having worked through the book, didn't have any problem with (at this point I also introduced a mini-game, not in the book, where he had lots of pieces and I had just a king and he had to try and checkmate me, which worked quite well and which I would recommend). It then covers the knight, pawns, and rules such as castling.It doesn't cover anything in terms of tactics or strategy, and for older children you could probably just explain the rules and then get on with it, but I found the way it ordered everything and the explanations it had for introducing the various aspects of the rules very well thought ought and obviously well tested on actual children. Definitely much better than trying to wing it!

A pretty decent book about teaching chess, and certainly much better than most of the competition. Pieces are introduced one at a time, and there are many side-notes discussing many real-world situations you may come across while teaching chess, and useful approaches for dealing with them. The psychological aspects of teaching are explained, which is a very useful insight into teaching.

An excellent book for teaching children,, or beginners of any age, to learn the game of chess. I would thoroughly recommend it.Book arrived promptly. Well pleased with purchase.

I bought this for my 4 year old who is interested in chess because his brother, who is 9 yrs old, plays chess. Using the book my 9 yr old was able to teach my 4 year old and they had a brilliant time together. I found the simplified chess exercises very good because using them I could play actually play chess with my 4 year old.

My moms a pushy grandma soooooo I was forced to buy this for the genius 5 year old nephew