Educational Benefits Of Playing Chess and Chess Sets For Kids

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Chess, a strategy board game, has been around for centuries. Chess is such a mental-skill game that it has even been classified as a “mind sport“. The educational benefits of playing chess are many and Chess is good for adults and children alike. Here are few reasons playing chess is considered to be good for your mind, as well as some chess sets for kids, and bit about learning to play chess. This post is sponsored by Grow Up Smart.

Educational Benefits Of Playing Chess

Chess is a classic game of strategy and many believe playing chess makes kids smarter.

Parents.com cites studies like that of educational psychologist Stuart Margulies, Ph.D., who “in 1996 found that elementary school students in Los Angeles and New York who played chess scored approximately 10 percentage points higher on reading tests than their peers who didn’t play. James M. Liptrap, a teacher and chess sponsor at Klein High School in Spring, TX, conducted a similar study in 1997. He found that fifth-graders who played chess scored 4.3 points higher on state reading assessments and 6.4 points higher on math tests than their non-chess-playing peers.” So numbers like that go along way to objectively being able to say that there are educational benefits of playing chess.

Parents.com also points out that studies by Dianne Horgan, Ph.D., found that chess improves a child’s visual memory, attention span, and spatial-reasoning ability. Each chess move helps kids learn to plan ahead, evaluate alternatives, and use logic to make sound choices. Chess is all about thinking ahead, testing hypotheses, and learning by trial and error.

On the Johns Hopkins School of Education website, Wendi Fischer states that “Chess might just be the perfect teaching and learning tool.” She also says, “It’s not about Kings, Queens, and Rooks, but rather, quadrants and coordinates, thinking strategically and foreseeing consequences. It’s about lines and angles, weighing options and making decisions.” It is clear to see that chess is a useful tool to develop higher level thinking skills, and advance math and reading skills.

It really goes beyond the educational benefits of playing chess. The benefits also include building self-confidence. Fischer further points out that chess levels the playing field as it crosses all socio-economic boundaries. It is a universal game and age, gender, ethnic background, religious affiliation, don’t matter when playing chess.

Chess Sets For Kids And How To play Chess For Kids

My son is 9 and he loves chess. He started in the Chess Club last year and he is loving it. The only thing is that he already surpassed my chess skills and my daughter’s chess skills so I found the perfect solution. Grow Up Smart has quality chess sets for kids and here’s the best part- they come with chess video lessons! These chess video lessons are perfect for teaching how to play chess for kids. They are all short and easy to follow and they proceed through the basics of chess board set up, the chess pieces and how they move, chess strategies, special rules, and ending the game.

The new GrowUpSmart Smart Tactics Chess Sets For Kids come with a 16″ folding board made from FSC® certified New Zealand pine wood with engraved number and letters along the edges. The chess men are easily stored inside the board and held in place by elastic straps. And the GrowUpSmart Smart Tactics Chess Sets For Kids come with a complementary video course “Learn How To Play Chess”, where you will learn everything you need to get started. The chess set comes in three different variants: Standard, Plus (all the features I just mentioned plus a handy travel bag) and Premium Editions (all the features I just mentioned plus the travel bag and extra chessmen).

I was provided with a GrowUpSmart Smart Tactics Chess Set and my clever plan was to use the videos to get myself and my daughter up to playing speed with my son. While I was doing just that, he found the chess board itself and came to tell me, “Thanks for the epic chess board, Mom!” He is loving his new board I found that the chess video lessons were useful in providing me with the basic knowledge I needed as a chess beginner.

I can tell you that when I watch my son play, I can see how far he has come in thinking ahead and planning out complex moves and countermoves. I certainly see the educational benefits of playing chess first hand with him. I give the GrowUpSmart chess sets for kids a huge thumbs up and I think the complimentary chess video lessons will be very useful for those wanting to learn how to play chess for kids.