Developing Thinking through Chess

One of the most important parts of the computing national curriculum is its requirement to teach computational thinking. The curriculum states,

'A high-quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world.'

For key stage 2, this is expanded, requiring that pupils,

'solve problems by decomposing them into smaller parts.'

Requirements for pupils to use repetition, selection and variables allude to the widely recognised stages of computational thinking:

• Decomposing a problem

• Looking for patterns

• Focusing on the most important information (abstraction)

• Designing an algorithm to solve the problem

• Testing and debugging

In this blog post, I wrote about the importance of metacognition. Children can be taught to follow thinking processes that they can use across subjects. These can include steps such as:

• Reading the instructions carefully

• Looking at the tools available to me

• Deciding what success looks like, including looking at examples

• Thinking about patterns

• Remembering where I have done this before

• Pausing

• Breaking the problem down into solvable chunks

• Thinking about things I get stuck with and ways to overcome these barriers

• Being considerate of others and the environment I am in

• Persevering when something is difficult

• Implementing and testing a solution

Teaching children about metacognition gives them greater agency over their work and increases their chances of succeeding.

Almost every aspect of children's primary education can benefit from following steps such as those outlined above.

Examples include:

• Writing in English or other subjects. Children read instructions, look at examples of similar writing and follow conventions (patterns), break the writing down (i.e. setting, character, description), read, evaluate end improve their writing

• Success in sport - children break games or movements down onto manageable steps and practise these

• Programming - children break a problem down in to programmable steps, write, test and improve algorithms to address aspects of this problem

Children who program, such as in App Lab (above) will be successful if they decompose tasks, look for patterns and test their algorithms.

Chess is an activity that lets children practise so many of the steps outlined above. The value of chess in developing thinking skills is that it is a visually simple environment, with few distractions or factors contributing to cognitive load.

Chess is even usually played in silence!

Children playing chess will play according to patterns in the opening, middle game and endgame, will think ahead and will scan the whole board to see the resources available to them and to their opponent. Success in chess depends on doing these things.

Computational thinking skills, including decomposition and pattern spotting are vital for success in chess.

Research on the benefits of chess

• How effective is chess in developing thinking skills, and other aspects of children's academic development?

  
  

• Is time spent practising chess justified in terms of its impact on children's academic performance?

Chess is a valuable activity regardless of the answer to these questions. Chess is a social activity and an enjoyable hobby and pastime. It brings children together, gives them an exciting topic to talk about and it is a part of the heritage of many countries.

However, I was (and still am) interested to explore the measurable impact that chess might have on aspects of children's academic performance thinking developing their thinking and strategic skills.

The website, chess.com reports many benefits to children from playing chess. As reported, these include development of critical thinking, memory, focus, patience and perseverance. Chess.com also states,

'Studies have shown that playing chess can positively increase academic performance especially in subjects like math, due to its emphasis on logical reasoning, pattern recognition and problem solving.'

The Frontiers in Psychology paper, 'The Effects of Chess Instruction on Pupils' Cognitive and Academic Skills: State of the Art and Theoretical Challenges', (link) by Sala, Foley and Gobet, reviews prevailing research on the impacts of chess on children academically.

This paper recognised PISA findings that suggest differences in mathematical proficiencies, vital for the technological development of countries, recognising that, 'there is a growing feeling that novel methods of teaching have to be developed to make mathematics instruction more effective.'

The meta analysis reported by this paper suggested that chess does seem to improve pupils' performance in mathematics and overall cognitive ability. Limitations of this studies were also recognised, including failure to adequately compare chess-treated groups with control groups.

This paper also reported on a study by the Institute of Education, stating that while it did not provide conclusive evidence against the impact of chess on cognitive skills, it also failed to establish its benefits.

Chess in Armenia

In 2011, Chess was introduced as a compulsory academic subject for all primary children in the Republic of Armenia.

In 2012, research began on the effectiveness of this program and in 2014, results were published in a 136-page booklet, which is viewable on the FIDE website.

This booklet is entitled, 'Chess in Schools', edited by Vahan Sargsyan, Anita Martiosyan and Varduhi Sargsyan. contains a summary. It is a collection of essays and findings by experts in chess, education and psychology. Some interesting findings include:

• 4th grade students learning chess were found to have reported a higher degree of efficiency in differentiating the main elements of structure and were able to use abilities of dynamic attention and imagination, consequently their logical thinking developed. (Armine Khachatryan, PhD)

• Creativity is the person's ability to generate unusual ideas and find original solutions (Ruben Aghuzumtsyan, PhD)

• Early school age is a sensitive period for the development of creativity and chess lessons promote the development of creativity (Ruben Aghuzumtsyan, PhD)

• There is an impact on children's psychology though chess, but only if it is taught by teachers who help children see the beauty and wisdom of chess. (Ruben Aghuzumtsyan, PhD)

• Radislav Atanassov quotes Dr. Peter Dauvergne as stating, "Chess is the last best hope for this country to rescue its skiding education system and teach the young generation the forgotten art of nurturing an attention span."

Armenia is a fascinating example of a country that has recognised the value of logical thinking, creativity and concentration and addressed these through chess, which is also an important part of Armenian history and heritage.

The Republic of Armenia has made chess part of the primary curriculum since 2011

Teaching chess effectively

As the findings from the Republic of Armenia reported, the impact of chess on children's academic and cognitive development will be affected by the quality of chess teaching and the extent to which teachers highlight the patterns and beauty of chess.

This does not mean that only grandmasters can introduce children to chess in schools!

I would draw an analogy with teaching PE in schools. Effective PE lessons are taught by PE teachers who focus on one or two techniques or skills, give children time to develop these through focused activities, provide support and extension and allow for application in a larger game.

In the same way, teachers of chess in primary schools can focus on one or two skills in a lesson. This could be setting up the board, learning how to move individual pieces, opening principles, castling, discovered attacks, forks or checkmates.

Teachers should be confident to give children a few pieces and ask them to play 'mini games', just as would happen in PE lessons. This could be queen and king v queen and king, bishop v knight and so on. Teaching children the 'ladder checkmate' and asking them to practise this against each other is a valuable drill.

On the resources section of this website, I have included a chess progression of skills, which could form the basis of chess teaching. The website Chesskid, (https://www.chesskid.com/) also has a full program of study and has published useful videos on their YouTube channel.

Conclusions

Chess, at its core, is the representation of a struggle, a problem to be solved. In this way, it bears many similarities to sports. Chess focuses entirely on the mental aspects of this challenge, giving children a valuable opportunity to practice these.

Chess is also an opportunity for children to develop a hobby that they can share with their teachers, friends and family members. Children should be encouraged to play chess at breaktimes, read books about chess and solve daily chess puzzles. Through these approaches, chess will become a celebrated part of community culture. Chess is an important part of the culture and heritage of so many places in the world and something that children will benefit from understanding.

In terms of thinking skills, chess an opportunity for schools to raise the profile of metacognition, which will lead to independence and agency in children. This metacognition will develop through shared language in subjects across the primary curriculum.