James Richard. Journey Through Chess. Part 1

A Chess Course For Children. — Richmond Junior Chess Club
Год издания не указан.First, a bit of background. I’ve been teaching chess for forty years. It became apparent to me some years ago that most children in this country were not getting a good experience of chess. So I stopped most of my chess teaching, studied child development and looked at the very different experiences that children received in other countries.
If you just want to treat chess as a parlour game, teach your children the moves, then go ahead and play. They’ll get some benefit just as they will from playing any other board game, but they won’t become good players. If you’re reading this now I’m assuming, and hoping, that you want your children to take chess seriously, either because you want them to have the opportunity to become serious competitive players should they wish to do so, or because of the unique educational benefits that chess, if it’s taught correctly, has to offer.
Whereas here in the UK children are taught the moves at home so that they can join a chess club, in other countries children join a chess club so that they can be taught correctly right from the start. Very often children learn the moves slowly, taking a year or more to learn all the moves, while at the same time learning how to look at a chess board, and understanding the underlying logic of the game. Without these skills, children will do little more than play random moves.
My belief is that there are, for most children, few advantages and many disadvantages in starting chess very young. Most children enjoy board games, but many of them would be better off playing simpler games with fewer options and only moving onto chess when they are ready. Playing chess, even at a low level, involves the sort of logical skills that children typically develop around the age of 7 or 8, and playing competitive chess involves the more complex skills that children typically develop around the age of 11 or 12. Many children who learn the moves at 7 or 8 start well, but get stuck after 18 months or so, get frustrated because they’re not making progress and eventually give up. Some exceptional children, under exceptional circumstances, can develop the appropriate skills earlier, sometimes, much earlier.