How to help (very) low-rated children "Get it" ?

Some of my students are young kids and are very low-rated - maybe 6-10 years old, and in the 100-400 rating range USCF. I've had some difficulties in coaching them, and am posting this to try to become a better coach.

Some of them have had over a dozen lessons with me, but it's always the same thing - I keep explaining to them how they have to slow down, and I keep explaining to them how they have to not hang all their pieces.

I explain to them what a hanging piece is, what a fork is, etc - I give them example after example of this from our training games, and all of them seem to understand what they did wrong each time, but they make similar mistakes again and again - just playing too fast, overlooking very basic tactics, and ultimately hanging all their pieces. Lesson after lesson, tournament after tournament.

Could it be that they're just too young to understand what I'm telling them? It can't be, right? After all, there are 8 year old experts and masters! And the kids I'm teaching generally have above-average intelligence.

I can teach them to play the opening well (not hard, with opening principles), and I teach them the bare basics of positional play - what a backwards pawn is, for instance - but I feel like it's pointless to go much deeper into anything else until they stop hanging everything. This leads to lesson after lesson about the same thing.

Does anyone know of techniques that are used to help these kids break through and become class E players? I'd be interested in what others have tried - something's gotta work, or there wouldn't be so many high-rated youngsters!

Farbeit for me to say given my own rating, but younger people tend to suffer from extreme tunnel vision.  In fact, scratch that; everyone tends to suffer from extreme tunnel vision sometimes!

I've been trying to break this in myself for quite some time.  What I've been doing is (in some turn-based games) noting and analyzing the positions of literally every piece with every move.  I suppose some might say I should do this anyway, but heh..  I don't.  I try to rely on my memory's eye, I suppose you may say (not exactly 20/20).

Anyway, I'm getting side-tracked.  Naturally I don't do this in live chess, but hey, I at least find it to be good practice in "slow" chess.  That being said, I'm boring and weird and honestly not very good!  I'm not sure how well kids would take to the whole "Let's analyze every single arbitrary piece every single move; it'll be fun!" approach.  I can say that it's helped me, though!

Yeah, not sure if you've tried this, but working off what WithIceCream said, maybe have two kids play each other and you talk to them during each move, and keep asking them, ok, have you checked for all the hanging pieces and checks yet? Ok, you can make your move now. And just keep doing that move by move, to try to make it a routine part of their move making. Maybe that would be better than just telling them not to hang pieces next time.

I mean, hell, that's how I stopped hanging pieces and simple tactics all the time. You just have to be a freak about checking what's defended and what's not, because there are so many pieces and squares that can be attacked :) Us more experienced players might not think many squares are attacked anymore but that's probably just because we're extremely used to the whole thing.

It sounds to me like you are teaching them and talking to them like you would to a sensible adult person.

However, a child's brain does not yet work quite that way. Sure, they can understand some principles, and give sensible answers to questions after you explained things to them, but that does not mean the same as when an adult does it.

Think of it this way: if kids were able to think and decide rationally, had a decent attention span and were able to apply what they have learned all the time, then why would we need to watch them so much ? Why would we need to guard and monitor them and their behaviour ?

The truth is their brain hasn't finished wiring itself for these things yet. You having to tell them to slow down all the time is a prime example of how their attention span is still limited.

A big part of learning chess is pattern recognition, and while their brains can't do that in a conscious way yet, the natural alternative is repetition, which needs to be FUN for them or they'll stop doing it.

Do a lesson occasionally and otherwise let them play each other again and again and try to let them have FUN first and foremost. With other kids who are just as bad for opponents, they will win roughly 50% of the time, which will hopefully keep them motivated.

Don't expect them to "get it" anytime soon, but still the rising number of games WILL help them improve... very slowly.

Chess is a game that can use up the full computing power of an adult brain, so don't expect too much from the kids, just like you would not expect them to master higher mathmatics either at that age.

Try to teach them some basics and let them have fun, and those who have a talent for it will even understand things well occasionally.

Remember, they're kids playing a game, not professionals competing for a small prize pool who need to do this for a living.

"A big part of learning chess is pattern recognition, and while their brains can't do that in a conscious way yet"

Wait, I thought this was more the opposite lol. Aren't kids actually better at taking in large amounts of patterns? That's why you're not going to see people who start playing at age 30 ever become an IM within 5 years. And sure for kids it's extremely rare, but for 30 year olds who never before played the game it's unheard of. Of course, otherwise kids are not as good learners, but in terms of absorbing new connections, they are best at that age. Same reason why you have to learn language as a child. Of course getting them to focus enough so that they can learn those patterns I'm sure is why a chess prodigy, or any prodigy for that matter, is a miracle.

Otherwise, though, your post was pretty sensible.

Yes, I should probably have elaborated a bit more on that point.

What I meant is that kids tend to recognize patterns subconsciously (and I agree they're good at that) opposed to the adult mind which tends to analyze and categorize recognized patterns in a conscious, scientific way.

Of course this division is not quite as binary as that, kids do have that ability to a certain degree and continue to develop it while they grow up.

So when I talked about repetition as a natural alternative, it would be more precise to say let them see the patterns often enough that their subconscious impressions of it will start to emerge as a conscious concept in their minds.

Maybe those kids are just stupid?

I've been volunteering at my daughter's school teaching chess to young, mostly completely inexperienced kids and see this a lot.  My daughter went through the same thing when she was younger, when she was around 6 (she's 9 now).  She seemed to understand what I was showing her but like what you described, kept making the same mistakes over and over and losing a lot at some little tournaments.  What finally seemed to make the difference for her was when I had her start doing lots and lots and lots of chess puzzles (about 5-10 at a time so she wouldn't get overwhelmed and burned out).  We started with the basic mate in one and slowly moved on to find the pin, find the fork, find the skewer, mate in two, etc.  I set them up on a real board (not on computer) and she did LOTS of them.  It took a couple months and then suddenly the light came on for her and she showed amazing improvement at a little tournament where she had been losing a lot with the occasional draw or win.  Tactical puzzles have made all the difference for her.  She has done literally hundreds upon hundreds of them.  We still do them now, both on a board and now she also does them on chesskid.com.  I don't teach her any specific openings beyond the basic principles of control the middle, develop your pieces, get castled, connect your rooks, etc; she just does lots of puzzles and learns from her own mistakes.  Helping the kids in the chess club at her school is different though since I only get 1 hr a week with them. Each week we start off with about 20 minutes of chess puzzles that I use a computer and wall projector so they can all see them and we do some mate in ones, some random puzzles from chesskid, etc.  I've primarily used 3 books:  Chess, 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games by Laszlo Polgar,  Winning Chess Puzzles for Kids by Jeff Coakley; and the e-book 399 Super Easy Chess Tactics by Anthea Carson and Tim Brennan.  My daughter isn't the best but she continues to show improvement and competes and holds her own now at the bigger scholastic tournaments here each year (yes, I'm proud of my little girl).  I'm convinced for young minds that puzzles, puzzles, puzzles helps train their brains to learn and recognize patterns better than anything else.  That and then playing games so they get a chance to finally recognize those patterns in real games.  Also, patience.  Good luck with your wonderful efforts! 

Just let 'em keep playing, eventually they will start to absorb what you are teaching them. Remember they are kids, their thought processes are different but eventually what you show them will start to fall into place, the main thing at that age is for them to enjoy it & play plenty of games.

Something I've learned from teaching English in classes of non-English speaking kids; not all of them are interested in learning the subject.

I founnd the best thing to do is provide lessons that are interesting enough to keep the uninterested students occupied yet offers potential for growth for the students who are interested in learning.

You will quickly discover which students want to improve and which ones just want to play around. Don't try and force them to learn at the same speed.

face it. some kids won't have the talent or interest in learning how to play. stop wasting your time or theirs trying to make it happen. by the time they reach 12 or 13 most kids drop out anyway. focus your energy on those who show a desire to improve and stop using chess as a tool to socialize these kids for critical thinking skills. its a game not a life style.

Oh it's a lifestyle alright. I have 32 outfits; one for each piece n the board.

Have patience. Don't rush. I tried to teach chess to my little sister (she's 7) but she was not interested. The same goes for the ones you are coaching. Some of them won't care to improve. Those who have a natural talent will eventually start to get the patterns and basic things. Good Luck!

so youre a new coach foxy..eee! You mus try to open the eyes of your children, to be acquainted with chess and dont lose time teaching them particular openings or deep theories, only those neccessary, so moving the middle pawns and develop the pieces. To play chess without making mistakes is neccessary to play slow chess often, so you must give to them simple exercises, a lot, as home work...moving a pawn on an empty board 100 times, taking a piece in the middle board after moving a pawn, protecting a piece and for talented children you must explain a game moves.

baby steps

my kid plays, shes 7 and slowing down is staring to take root sometimes. I overheard the dad of an under 8 national champion telling his kid to slow down. I told him it made me feel better. the nm coach who runs my daughters school chess club has to ask his 7 year old to slow down. we go over many things,but it always comes back to " double check your moves" and "dont throw your pieces away". a love of the game seems to be what gets my kid to slow down, shes a big polgar fan. your problem is very widespread even among talented kids, their board vision will improve after a 1000 games or so, so dont worry. good luck, and if you solve this one please let me know!

when i don't understand something

i usually take a break and do something else

Reading this reminded me of something. When I was a kid, once my dad watched me play (a game that wasn't chess) and kept bugging me every move with questions, did you think of this? did you think of that? It was annoying but afterwards I realized it made me a lot better.

What I think would be a neat program (on a computer) for beginners would be you're shown a position, then a move is made, and you have to highlight all the newly attacked squares. Maybe you could have another mode where you must highlight all the newly undefended squares.

So how to do this in a practice game? Maybe make them call out newly attacked squares before they're allowed to move. If that takes too much time, have them trace their finger quickly on the board after each of their opponent's moves. If an undefended piece is newly attacked, make them pat it's head or something lol.

Now, this may get annoying for the kids, so maybe only 1 game like this a day, but at least you'll be sure they're paying attention to what each move does.

For motivation maybe you could designate certain practice games as "tournament" games, and you (or a peer) must watch the game, and count the number of pieces they hang. If they hang >10 they get no sticker, 6-9 some kind of sticker, 2-5, 1, 0 etc.

I don't know how many kids you have at a time, you could even make it a ladder type system, and keep a leader board up to date on who has hung the least over the last month or something like this.

Mate in 1 for example as I guess you notice is super advanced stuff you could make puzzle pages to try to capture a free piece.

Reminds me of a story a guy at a tournament lost to a kid who was rated 350 and his friends were ribbing him and asking him how could you possibly lose to a 350 player and the guy said "Oh, he was much closer to being a 400 player".