Chess is a game that I have loved for a long time. As a child, I used to play against my dad and my brother. I joined the chess club at my middle school, and later joined the chess club and eventually chess team of my high school. On the chess team, I played in local school tournaments, city tournaments, the state tournament and even the national chess tournament one year. Our team placed 2nd in our division at the state tournament, but we were close to last in our division at nationals. It was all fun, and a great learning experience. I loved playing competitively, and I missed it when high school was over.
After high school, I didn't play chess much anymore. I got married, started having kids, and was overall too distracted for chess. It wasn't on my priority list, and it was barely on my radar, but when my oldest daughter was turning four, suddenly it seemed important again. I really wanted to teach both of my children chess. Early education is important to me. My daughter was already learning piano, math, and reading, and I realized that she was definitely old enough and ready to start learning the basics of chess.
Despite not having any books on the subject, I started teaching Acacia and her younger sister Jasmine about chess, to the best of my ability. Teaching the names of the pieces to them was easy, but beyond that, it quickly became rather difficult. I remembered learning about/hearing about 3 year olds who could play chess, and I thought there had to be more information out there on teaching such a complicated game to a preschooler. That was when my Amazon searching began.
I searched on Amazon for books on teaching chess, and clicked on nearly every link that popped up. Book after book after book was for teaching children ages 8 and up, or 9 and up, 12 and up, or (rarely) 6/7 and up. None were on teaching 2 and up, 3 and up, or 4 and up, until finally I came across Chess is Child's Play, for teaching ages 2 and up. After reading on it for a few minutes, I discovered that the book had not even been released yet. At that point, being a book-reviewer, I looked up the publisher's web address to request a review copy. I actually didn't find the contact information I needed from the publisher's website, so I contacted one of the authors, Laura Sherman, and she was kind enough to request the review copy for me (and also to do an author interview with me!).
In the meantime, I continued struggling along with trying to teach my daughter chess on my own.
When the book arrived, I was immediately impressed with the physical quality. This is a hard-cover book, well-made, with great paper quality, and the diagrams/pictures are large and easy to see. The book has a friendly feel to it.
When I started reading, I noticed early on that a lot of the ideas and methods I'd been using with my daughter already were actually included in this book. It felt good to know I was on the right track. At the same time, the book also pointed out many of the exact same mistakes I had made in teaching! It was almost as if the authors had been watching me, and then documented my "common mistakes" such as trying to teach the pawn too soon, and teaching other concepts out of order. It is easy to see that the authors really know what they are talking about in this book and that they truly have experience teaching chess to young children. The order of things in this book is logical, and makes a lot more sense than what I had come up with on my own.
This book is not specifically for preschool age children, but is actually written for children of any age. It will help you teach your child chess whether you are experienced or have never played the game before yourself. The lessons are simple enough for young children, but captivating enough to keep the attention of older children, and parents as well.
The first three chapters are Why Chess?, What You Should Expect from the Lessons, and Tips on Teaching. These three chapters formed an excellent introduction to the game. The next chapter is Special Exercises for Two to Four-Year-Olds.
After that, each chess piece is learned individually, and has its own chapter. The pieces are taught in a specific order, which makes them easier to learn. In between some of the chapters on the chess pieces, there is a chapter on taking the other players' pieces, and one on how to attack and defend pieces. These concepts are revisited again later in the book. After learning how to move the King, but before learning to move the Knight and Pawn, there is a chapter on Check and a chapter on Checkmate. The order of the pieces and concepts made a lot of sense, and the authors make a note now and then to remind parents not to bring up certain ideas or concepts yet. The instructions in this book are very clear, and easy to follow.
After learning all the pieces and the basics of attacking, defending, check and checkmate, the authors included a chapter on the difference between legal and illegal moves. Then there is a chapter on how to set up the chess board, and a chapter on playing that first real game.
All the basics have been covered at this point, and now the book includes some of the more complicated concepts to learn and teach. Castling comes next after playing your first game with the chess board set up properly, and then there are tips for opening strategies. The value of the pieces is covered, with tips for teaching this to older children and tips for teaching it to younger children. There is a whole chapter written on how your own pieces can get in your way, and then more on attacking and defending, going a little more in depth on these topics. Getting out of check has its own chapter, and of course more tips on spotting and forming checkmate is covered, and a chapter about stalemates and draws.
One thing I love about this book is that it is full of mini-games to play with your child. Especially for a younger child, the process of learning to play a full game can take several months. In the meantime, simply teaching lessons would get boring rather quickly, and I would imagine many children would lose interest. The mini-games in this book solve that dilemma by creating interactive games you can play every step of the way. Again, with the mini-games, some were exactly what I had been using, or planning to use, to teach my daughter, and some showed me that other ideas of mine would have possibly been the opposite of helpful. The authors' insight and experience showed well with these mini-games, and really the entire book.
I received this book as an experienced chess player. I already knew how to play chess, but this book helped me learn to better teach it. Chess is Child's Play filled in a lot of gaps in my teaching. Sometimes when you are really good at something, you'll overlook the smaller details that beginners need to pay attention to. This book really helped point out to me some of the concepts that are difficult for beginners, but which I take for granted and would generally consider obvious. It has helped me learn to slow down a little bit more and have more patience, and take my time, with teaching chess. This book will help you go at your child's pace, and help you to understand what your child's pace is. The authors have tips on understanding whether your child comprehends what you are teaching, and there are Troubleshooting Tips at the end of each chapter, with brief questions and answers about concepts your child may be struggling with, or getting bored with.
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
After this, I have ambitions of starting a local chess club for kids. If all goes well, you'll certainly be hearing about it here in the future!
