C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 Our math program incorporates chess to develop logic skills. My daughter, a visual-spatial, is absolutely *not* a linear thinker. She is unable to follow a reasoning, nor to come up with one herself. She's not dumb, she just thinks differently... How can I ever get a visual-spatial child to learn the basics tricks of chess??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vida Winter Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 Cleo, we got a game called "No Stress Chess" for our 8yo visual daughter this Christmas - and she adores it. It is chess with a twist - you have to draw cards to see which piece you move. For instance, you draw a card that says "Rook" - you have to move one of your rooks, if possible. The card reviews what a rook can do. In this way it takes most of the decision making out of the game but the neophyte can learn very well what the pieces can and can't do. You don't play until checkmate, you actually play until you take someone's king, and then the game is over. When proficient at playing this way, you can move up to "real" chess and they already have a good comfort level with the game. It's at amazon for $12 or so. We play while we are waiting for older sister at Tae Kwon Do and others were looking on in amazement as a tiny 8-yr-old played chess with me and my sidekick 4yo (who is picking it up, too!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SquirrellyMama Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 That sounds like a good way for me to learn chess. No matter how hard I try I cannot get it. Kelly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myfunnybunch Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 We have No-Stress Chess, and all of my children enjoy playing with and without the cards. The cards help teach the moves and level the playing field so that an experienced player isn't necessarily able to win easily. Chess is a *great* game for visual-spatial learners. My v-s dd took a while to learn the moves, and is now an excellent and very intuitive chess player. She cannot explain her strategy for beans, but she plays very well and sometimes beats her dad. Cat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted January 12, 2009 Author Share Posted January 12, 2009 Thanks for the suggestion, but DD does know the rules. She can move the pieces without a problem. What she can't do it reason through a series of moves. Her math program will have simple chess problems. "Find what the rook can do in order to avoid a checkmate" type of things. These are very very basic chess problems (she's after all a third grader) but she can't reason through all the possibilities. Her brother was playing chess at 6yo. Years (eons, many lifetimes ago!) I was courted to get onto the national team. Chess is something serious! (well, not really since I never did accept to compete at that level. It was way too serious for me!) I can't play with my son, because he's not good enough. With my daughter it's worse ! My frustration levels go way high when she can't reason through what is to me a more-than-simple problem! yes, part of the problem is my own frustration. Part is her lack of reasoning which is across the board. :banghead: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beansprouts Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 I just bought a Chess board for DD to help with developing logic. Where can I find chess problems like the ones Cleo mentioned? (free & online is best ;)) Cleo, I think 8 is a little young to expect too much logic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonshineLearner Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 Her math program will have simple chess problems. "Find what the rook can do in order to avoid a checkmate" type of things. These are very very basic chess problems (she's after all a third grader) but she can't reason through all the possibilities. :banghead: I'd love to know what math program this is...my 5 year old knows pretty much all the chess moves...of course, I know....none. Carrie:confused: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plaid Dad Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 Chess is mostly about visual-spatial perception; you need not only understand the "logic" of how the pieces move, but be able to recognize at a glance a range of positions and know how to exploit them. Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess approaches the game this way, as does Susan Polgar (A World Champion's Guide to Chess; Chess Tactics for Champions). You can take the puzzles and exercises one very small step at a time, particularly for a child that young. Honestly, I wouldn't expect a child to really "get" chess at that age unless she was obsessed enough with it to spend many hours a day doing chess puzzles. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted January 12, 2009 Author Share Posted January 12, 2009 Here's the level of "logic" that the math program expects 8yo to figure out. There are 3 pieces on the board. A white queen, and two black pieces. Where can the white queen go to so that it will attack both black pieces at the same time. You can see it's not advanced chess at all. It's barely chess ! It's really just some basic logical deductions. Yes, it assumes the child knows how to move the pieces, but that math program started chess in grade 1. So this is the third year already. She knows how the queen moves, but she can't understand how to think through a problem like this! Btw, the math program is called Défi-Math, and is in French only. Too bad though, because they do have a *free* homeschool program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 That problem that you mentioned would lend itself to some trial and error with those three pieces very well. I'll bet that she could figure it out if she tried a few things, and that the exercise would be good for her. Gradually she would learn to do those trials faster and faster, and then she would be able to start to grasp the 'look' of the board, and the logic of the moves more and more easily. 8 is pretty young for this, and I don't think that I would recommend complicating the situation by trying to beef up her overall chess skills. I think that she would do better with an uncluttered board for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted January 12, 2009 Author Share Posted January 12, 2009 It *is* an uncluttered board. There are only three pieces on it! And yes, it's a real board, not an image on paper. She can move the pieces around. She can show me where the queen can go, and she can tell me if the queen is attacking a piece when I ask her. She can answer every single step required to find the solution, but nothing, absolutely nothing, on her own. For example, she didn't try moving the queen until I asked her where it could go. She just sat there with a blank look... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 It *is* an uncluttered board. There are only three pieces on it! And yes, it's a real board, not an image on paper. She can move the pieces around.She can show me where the queen can go, and she can tell me if the queen is attacking a piece when I ask her. She can answer every single step required to find the solution, but nothing, absolutely nothing, on her own. For example, she didn't try moving the queen until I asked her where it could go. She just sat there with a blank look... At least for now. She will get it later on, once she has been walked through the pattern a few times (or maybe a bunch of times). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myfunnybunch Posted January 12, 2009 Share Posted January 12, 2009 As I was reading your latest post, it occurred to me: If breaking the chess problem down into components helps, can you break problem-solving into components by teaching problem-solving methods?: Trial-and-error, making an educated guess based on what you already know about chess (or math, or where socks go), guessing or intuition (which was my dd's strength, sigh). I sometimes ask my 8 y.o. when he asks me something I think he can reason through: What are some strategies you might use to solve that problem? If he's stuck, I'll make a list and he'll choose. If he struggles with his choice I'll walk him through what it looks like to solve the problem using that method. At 8, my dd (now almost 16) was very much the same as yours when it came to problem-solving in most arenas, not just chess. If she did know the correct answer, she often had no idea how she got there, nor could she explain her work. If she didn't know the answer, she was completely stumped as to how to solve the problem, whether it was math or where to put her socks. I've spent several years saying things like, "Hmm...how can you solve that problem?" I hope that makes sense--I'm rushing to get through this before Mom's taxi departs for choir and swim and errands. Good luck, I know it can be frustrating when the solutions seem so simple to us and so....impossible to your child. Cat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 At 8, my dd (now almost 16) was very much the same as yours when it came to problem-solving in most arenas, not just chess. If she did know the correct answer, she often had no idea how she got there, nor could she explain her work. If she didn't know the answer, she was completely stumped as to how to solve the problem, whether it was math or where to put her socks. I've spent several years saying things like, "Hmm...how can you solve that problem?" Cat You've described my DD to a T ! Today, we hit a wall with chess, but it's really across the board. Finding an object in the house is a total mystery (but ok, it is for me too :lol:) Everything remotely logical is a huge struggle for her. The other day, she had to guesstimate time read on a clock where the big hand was missing, based on how close the little hand was to the following number. Nope, no can do. If the big hand is there, she can read time with no problem. Hide the big hand, and boom, everything's gone. And even *after* I explained to her that the little hand creeps forward slowly and will be closer to the bigger number for the second half, she still didn't get it. And to make things worst for me, she follows Mr. Spock in birth order.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myfunnybunch Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 You've described my DD to a T ! Today, we hit a wall with chess, but it's really across the board. Finding an object in the house is a total mystery (but ok, it is for me too :lol:) Everything remotely logical is a huge struggle for her. The other day, she had to guesstimate time read on a clock where the big hand was missing, based on how close the little hand was to the following number. Nope, no can do. If the big hand is there, she can read time with no problem. Hide the big hand, and boom, everything's gone. And even *after* I explained to her that the little hand creeps forward slowly and will be closer to the bigger number for the second half, she still didn't get it. If it's any encouragement at all, my lovely dd usually gets concepts now. She's a good student. It's taken a lot of practice. She still doesn't always approach things the most logical linear way. I still have to walk her through problem-solving once in a while. But as she's gotten older she's been able to learn to use a more logical thought process as a backup to those flashes of intuition. :grouphug: Cat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cathmom Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Why is it so important that she figure out these chess problems? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Perhaps your daughter would do well with materials that build up these logical skills with patterns, variables, and other critical thinking operations. If English language (very light) isn't a problem, you might want to look at the Mathematics Enhancement Programme developed by the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching in the UK (based on an acclaimed Hungarian math series). I'm using this with my 4.5 year old and to me it is outstanding program(me) for building the skills your daughter seems to be struggling with. The whole program is available online (student workbooks, teachers guides, the whole deal) for download, and without charge (as in "free" for the printing). A few books are copy protected but home-schoolers can join the yahoo group and get the code. http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/primary/default.htm Bill (who will remind you that Bobby Fisher was a chess genius, and look how his life turned out :tongue_smilie:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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