I've been trying to teach my 5-year old daughter, Jocelyn, how to play chess, so I've been buying and borrowing CD's and board games and having my daughter play test each of them.

My daughter and I have played the following:

1.    Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess (software borrowed from Bettendorf Library.  Old and difficult to find to purchase.)

 

2.    Fritz and Chesster #1 and #2  (software borrowed from Bettendorf Library.  Available to purchase from Amazon.com for ~$29.00)

3.    Dinosaur Chess (NEW software by Convetka, purchased for Christmas from Amazon.com for $27.00.  There is a splendid review by Dadi Jonnson in ChessCafe.com)

4.    No Stress Chess (board game purchased for Christmas at Toys-R-Us for ~$12.00 and also available at Amazon.com)

 

Here is our ranking of these chess teaching tools from best to worst:

1.    Dinosaur Chess   which targets 4-7 year olds.

2.    No Stress Chess  which targets kids ~6-13. 

3.    Fritz and Chesster Series (#1-#3) which targets kids 8-13

4.    Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess   which is for child and adult beginners 10 years old and over.

 

Some comments on No Stress Chess and Dinosaur Chess:

No Stress Chess is excellent in that it allows the child to play a complete game of what I call Pseudo-chess until the child learns the basics and then progresses up to Real chess.  Pseudo chess is any modified version of standard chess.  In the No Stress Chess board game, each player takes turns (white goes first) and draws one card and moves the piece indicated on that card.  Each card has a diagram showing the movement and capturing ability of the piece.  At the basic level, the concept of "Check" is not introduced, and the game ends when the King is actually captured.  So Level 1 is simply teaches the child how to move the pieces.  My daughter has already challenged her father, her uncle, and her grandfather to complete games of chess using this game.  She has won 50% of those games.

 

At higher levels of the game, each player is issued several cards from which to choose movements from.  At Level 2, 3 cards are issued and at Level 3, 5 cards are issued.  More cards, means more options to choose from, which can lead to planning, and the more the game approximates Real chess.  In addition, the concepts of "Castling", "Pawn Promotion", and "En Passant" can be introduced whenever the child is ready.  After a week of playing this game and learning from Dinosaur Chess software, Jocelyn and I are up to playing Level 3 (5-cards) No-Stress Chess, and we have used and demonstrated all of the important rule concepts except for "check" during the games.  Now as we use more cards, the more I need to help Jocelyn with piece movements, tactics, and strategies.  And at some point we will incorporate "check and checkmate" into the games and then switch over to Real chess using the same board and pieces.

 

Dinosaur Chess is an outstanding piece of software.  In the Learning portion of the game, there are 10 chess lessons that covers piece movement and every major rule concept in chess.  In addition, there are 6 dinosaur characters that the player can play a Pseudo game of chess against and engage in a Dino-Fight against.  The player starts off as a hatchling baby dinosaur, and the player can choose to be a boy or a girl (this appealed to my daughter).  In order to grow bigger and defeat the other dinosaur characters in the Dino-Fight, the hatchling must grow in size and this is done by completing the chess lessons.  My daughter loves to take a dinosaur from hatchling size to large size to defeat the other computer opponents in Dino-Fight.  So she has gone through the lessons twice now.  She still has trouble with the "check" concept, and she grows frustrated with the Knight moving exercises, but she manages to get through the lessons (and accompanying exercises) just to play the Dino-Fight video game portion. 

 

Now the Pseudo chess games in Dinosaur Chess use all the standard chess rules but do not use all of the pieces.  For instance, the lowest ranked dinosaur opponent, the anklyosaurus, can only control the king and pawns, so in this game the player and computer anklyosaurus play with only kings and pawns.  The highest dinosaur opponent, the Tyrannosaurus Rex can control all of the pieces, so playing against the T-Rex is like playing a Real game of chess.  When it comes to playing the computer opponents, we are still at the lowest level, and I have to sit down next to her and guide her through the checkmating process.  Ultimately, Dinosaur Chess is one awesome teaching tool for younger kids.  Again see the review at http://www.chesscafecom/text/chessok11.pdf.

 

 

Some Comments on Fritz and Chesster Series and Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess:

Both are excellent pieces of chess learning software.  Maurice Ashley's software is older (late 1990's), so the graphics are presentation are not great, but the exercises are very good, and it teaches some tactics and strategies.  It is geared towards any beginner over 10 years old, even adults. 

 

The Fritz and Chesster series are good.  Each CD revolves around a cartoon theme with a witty narrative.  There plenty of mini-games for a child to play but many of the mini-games have little to do with chess.  It is above my daughter's head.  The first topic discussed in the first CD is "opposition" and it is taught with a sumo-wrestling mini-game.  Now this is pretty advanced concept to begin with for children, one could play a life-time of enjoyable causual chess without mastering it, and it should not be taught before teaching how the pieces move.  In addition, it is not clear to my daughter how the sumo-wrestling game relates to chess.  So this is just not suitable for younger kids.

 

 

Perhaps members of the club could make use of my findings.  I know Joe and Roger are interested in teaching chess to kids.  And I know several members have grandchildren.  So feel free to pass this info on.