Chess is Child's Play: Teaching Techniques That Work

I am most known in another realm, the world of haiku, but throughout my life I have played chess, though not nearly so well as I would like. Several people I know in the haiku world are avid chess players, so it was no real surprise to me that one of them, Laura Sherman (along with co-author Bill Kilpatrick), might produce a book on the subject. Laura teaches the game professionally, and her book, Chess is Child's Play, is a model of how a game ought to be taught. It is designed to help adults teach children the game. It is completely thought through, beautifully designed, well illustrated, and useful in a hundred ways. I strongly recommend it to anyone who would like to create that special relationship with a child that teaching them something they will enjoy for their entire lives will bring.I have purchased several copies to share. I gave one to my partner, a lifelong teacher, who had never played chess, but it interested her enough to be considering taking it up herself. She in turn has sent it to her adult children, so they can teach her grandkids.The book's strategy is to study chess activity through mini-games: reduced forces that permits learning exactly how they interact without being overwhelmed by the complexity of the whole thing. This makes sense to me, and I think it will prove to be an effective methodology. I like too the order in which piece play is taught, not what might seem most obvious but rather a gradated approach from simplest (the rook) to the most complex (pawns are the soul of chess, as a famous master once remarked and every one of them since has seconded).If you have a child you'd like to introduce to chess, but maybe don't know quite how to go about it, this is the book for you. You won't regret it.Jim Kacian

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.

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!

Large part of the book is on teaching methods and how to explain.Not enough information about the game itself.

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.

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.

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.

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