My daughter, who will be 6 in a few days, has expressed an interest in chess. I never really played when I was a child and I’m only an average player now.
When she was with me this weekend she saw the board in the closet and asked to play. I thought she would get tired of it quickly, but we set up the board and I showed her how to move the pieces. She seemed to get the idea of movement quickly, she even understood the knight.
The next day she asked to play again, and to my surprise remembered how to set up the board correctly. We didn’t get far in that game as more interesting things came up. But when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday she said a chess and checkers set.
Since I’m not that great, are there good chess sets out there that help teach the game? How about a computer program, not that she uses the computer at my house at all. She can read, but not well, so right now any kids books are out.
I don’t expect her to be any kind of prodigy, and I don’t want to push her at it, but if she seems to want to learn then I think it might be a good time.
Honestly, at that age I’d say just play the game. Sure, there’s openings to learn, and there’s endgames to master and there are strategies to implement, but odds are great she’s not quite there yet.
Just play. Play as often as she wants and it’s the repetition of the game that’ll make her understand various concepts. Eventually you can start to encorporate questions like “did this move work?” or “what’s another move you can make here?” or “what do you think I’m going to do?” and she’ll build from there.
Sorry, I wasn’t going to go there, I meant more if there were games or ways to help her learn to move and such. I’ve seen a couple of boards with moves on it and such.
Hell, I’m not that good so I’m not going to try and teach her much expect how to move and such. Strategies and such can come later on.
I was surprised that she remembered some of the names of the pieces too. I’ll have to get her by herself and see if she likes to play or if this was just something she saw and wanted to do.
I had a chess set growing up that basically taught me how to play. All the pieces were flat, with the picture of which piece it was on the top. On the bottom was a diagram of how the piece was allowed to move. You could set it up upside down very easily with no confusion. A little digging brings up nothing though. But I bet your local game store might be helpful.
There aren’t many good chess sets to teach the game, but there are a gazillion books for kids on the subject. Check your library. I guarantee they’ll have some books for her. They’ll even teach the basics of strategy in a kid-friendly manner. As for software, I’d recommend Chessmaster instead of Fritz. CM has a kid’s section with practice drills and audio-visual lessons.
For the basics, when my kids were small we had a book appropriately called “Chess for Kids” (I think, it has long since been passed on to some neice or nephew). It told the story of the pieces and why they move the way they do. For example, the pawns capture diagonally because they would be holding a sheild in one hand – they explained it much better than I can… :0) It seemed like the story was what helped our kids to “see” the idea of the game and remember how the pieces move.
On edit: I see that she can’t read, but if you told the story to her would she remember it like a fairy tale?
The first thing (which I’m sure you know) is to let her learn at her own pace. Also when you taught her the moves, did you include castling, promotion and en passant?
I support borschevsky’s recommendation of ‘Fritz and Chesster’.
I recommend trying some very simple endings first (coping with all the pieces is hard for a beginner.)
Try putting just a White Queen and a Black Knight on the board. The Queen has to capture the knight.
This teaches her how the most powerful piece moves and the trickiest. Plus she can start thinking ahead (where could the knight go next? How can I stop it?)
Try checkmating with two Queens versus lone King. (This should be easy, but you may run into stalemate!)
I have two kids, one at 14 is a solid player, the second, at 11 is fairly good as well. I taught them by handicapping myself. I’d start off with only some pawns and a king, while they’d have full board. After they beat me three times in a row they’d get some reward (5 bucks and a pack of gum) and we’d start the cycle again, but I’d have more pieces, or a stronger set of pieces.
It was fun because I’d play my hardest. My chess got better, and they were stoked if they won.
I also had a chess for kids that came with two sets of pieces, one set was flat cardboard pieces with how to move marked on them, and the other set was plain plastic Staunton pieces for when I didn’t need the arrows any more.
