I would say don't push her too hard. Let her develop at her own pace. It's all right if she's not a grandmaster by the time she is 11. If she learns the moves at her own pace with peers (you mentioned the free chess time) I think she will relax and have fun with it more.
Teaching an 8 year old.
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well,when i was 8 i wasn't very good, and she should play with low level people, and her classmates
she should practice a lot
Mar 28, 2010
0
#5
Highly recommend Jeff Coakley's Winning Chess Strategy for Kids. This is a very kid-friendly book with fairly challenging material to cover. You can work on this with your daughter together and you'll both learn a lot about the basics.
Also look up professorchess.com for some very nice kid-friendly chess practice exercises.
Beyond this, I'd say get a basic book on endgames and come up with some fun drills for things such as basic mates. Google for a fun meta-chess game called Pawn Battle. It worked wonders with a 5 year old I was teaching. Eventually work your way up to King and single Pawn vs King endgames (if she's absorbing well so far) and teach her how to win and draw these.
As somebody posted earlier on, there will be a lot of stuff the child will sponge and learn on her own as she grows and it is ridiculous to "force" knowledge onto a kid who may just want to play and have fun ... so you really have to play this by ear ... keep it fun at all times. Though the one goal you can work towards is making sure her basic technique (closing out clearly + easily won games, finishing simple endgames) is flawless. As she matures as a player, this kind of training will make her lethal in comparison to her "1.e4 2.Bc4, 3.Qh5" peers.
This is part of chess.com,but its for kids www.chesskid.com.
Mar 28, 2010
0
#7
She may know how to move the pieces but does she know how to use them in the game? An example like this is probably a good one. The knight has to get the pawn in as few moves as possible. Practice getting onto key squares with pieces. In the example I have given the fewest moves to get to the pawn square is 5, and the solution given is one example of how to do it.
Using one piece on the board and just having her move it round randomly (of course using the correct way to move the piece) can really mean they spot what to do when it comes to using that piece in the game.
Thanks for the feedback. I took her to a open chess time today and she had fun, lost two games against a stronger kid and then won two against a boy who was just learning the moves. Its a nice start. She seems to understand the rules and was able to (nicely) correct her opponent and explain if he tried an illegal move. Of course they both hung pieces left and right, went on queen rampages, etc, but at this point I am just happy that she is moving the peices around the board properly and getting a sense of a real game. After winning the two games against the boy who was just starting, she showed good sportsmanship, encouraged him, and said "my dad says you learn more when you loose than when you win." And I think she ment it.
Just looked at professorchess.com. Fantastic Stuff!! I have been using chesskid.com as well.
Hi all,
I am a low level amature player. I have an 8 year old daughter who saw some kids playing chess at school and asked me to teach her the game. I have taught her the moves and am trying to teach her some basic opening principles, but when we sit down with a board she kind of freezes up, and say "I don't know what to do". I try to show her a few options and let her choose one when she doe that. She seems very eager, in that she askes often for us to spend time on chess, but I am not sure I am doing a very good job of teaching her.
I have a very limited budget. Coaching is out. Software that is not very cheap is out. I could probably manage a book or two. If you had to buy one book for a 8 year old, what would you suggest? I did find out that my local library has an all ages open chess time every sunday, and I am going to take her so she might have some other kids to play agaist. Other than that, does anyone have any suggestions on how to get an 8 year old going on the game.