Checkmate! Children, 3, taught chess
EBEN HARRELL
Scotsman.com
CHILDREN as young as three are to be taught chess at up to 50 nurseries in an effort to improve their concentration and mental dexterity.
The plan, which will see the board game join traditional nursery pastimes such as hop-scotch and tag, follows the success of a pilot programme near Glasgow.
While their Queen’s gambits, Sicilian defences and Zugzwang endgames might not be at the level of the grandmaster, some 80 pupils at Holy Family nursery in Kirkintilloch are now capable of playing out complete games against one another.
East Dunbartonshire Council has distributed a 20-page booklet to all its 49 pre-schools, laying out a lesson plan for teaching chess to three and four-year- olds.
Students are introduced to the game through fantasy stories involving castles, knights and bishops. They are then taught the names of each piece and their position on the board, before restrictions on their movements are explained. Anne Smith, of East Dunbartonshire Council, said: “We were looking to challenge the children.
“We’ve seen an improvement in [children’s] concentration, vocabulary and spatial awareness.”
While some students find it difficult to develop strategy, others become competent chess players within months, according to Tom Dibble of the Scottish Chess Association, who assisted with the pilot programme.
“Make no mistake: these kids can beat you,” he said. “If you don’t know how to defend against a two-move or four-move checkmate, you will lose to some of these pupils”.
Michale Boyle, who plays regularly with his daughter and Holy Primary pupil Lucia, four, said: “I can still beat her, thank God. It’s great fun for both of us and I think it really has helped her concentration”.
The pilot programme follows a report by HMI in Scotland that called for a more challenging curriculum for nursery-age students. Recent research has highlighted the role of early education and specifically “enriched” environments, in the development of neuro-networks and intelligence.
Gerry Walsh, Deputy President of the European Chess Union, said: “Programmes in primary schools has demonstrated that chess improves mental discipline and the ability to calculate. There’s no reason why that would not be true for even younger students”.
The rest can be read here.
Hi GM Polgar. I was wondering who won the essay contest for the SP Invitational tournament in August? Thank you!
Your Monk took my Highlander on d4. Scotland rules!
Cool! I’m trying to teach my little 3 year old girl chess. She knows pawns especially “because they’re little like she is”, and she knows the Queen, Knight (not the “horsey”), and she knows the “Castle” (working on Rook).
She knows “generally” where the pieces go on the board, though she usually needs a bit of help.
Just the other day, she repeated something back to me that I had fleetingly mentioned and that I surely didn’t think she’d remember. As she was putting the knight on its square, she said “and this one can hop over the pawns”.
Cool! She’s gettin’ it! It takes patience, and you don’t want to do it with them constantly or it becomes a chore to them. We get the set out just infrequently enough that when she happens to see it, she says “Daddy, let’s play chess! With the breakable one [glass chess set, of course!], ok?!” 😉
my son is three and knows how to set up the board and all the names of the pieces 🙂 Getting him to only move the pieces the correct way is the challenge now! 🙂