Age for learning chess.

I have been reading biographies of many chess players and it seems like many got exposed to chess at the age 4-5 with some as early as 3 (Polgar sisters, Capablanca etc). How early is too early for chess? I have 2 years 9 months son and 9 months daughter and I just cannot wait to start teaching them. My son has been exposed to chess from birth (saw me play, saw me teach kids, saw zillion of chess boards in the house, also saw chess on digital devices). He knows the names of pieces in russian and English but he is still too young to play or understand. Any of you have experience with teaching pre-schoolers?

I have no experience.

I read one coach say you can expose them as early as 4 or 5 (as you've said) but you can't really start teaching them until around 7 or 8, and he questioned if starting as early as 5 was worthwhile.

Don't remember the source, sorry for that, but it's something to consider.

Interesting. In my experience I taught 6-7 year olds and they were pretty good to grasp things. I never taught pre-schoolers so I have no idea.

If you look at the current crop of top American juniors, most of them started playing in tournaments at the age of 5 or 6, so we can assume they learned chess a bit before that.

Some kids will be ready to learn before others.  I tried teaching my son at 5 but he couldn't remember the names of the pieces let alone how each of the pieces moved, so it wasn't until he was 6 (nearly 7) that he learned how to play.  This December though he became the highest rated 7-year old in the U.S.

His case as well as the examples of many other top juniors, past and present, including Magnus Carlsen, show that starting at 3 or 4 doesn't seem to make that much of difference over, say, starting at 5, 6 or even 7.  In fact, what seems to be most important in terms of chess strength as well as love for the game as an adult is how kids study and play chess through ages 8-12 or so.

A danger in starting kids off too early is that they might get burned out (if they do too much chess too early) or disenchanted with the game (if they experience early failures) by the time they reach those critical years.  

So, what I'd suggest is that though you can try to teach your kids as chess as early as you like, you shouldn't force the game on them so early that the game is hugely frustrating to them and you shouldn't worry that they are somehow falling behind the Polgars and Capablancas of the world if they don't start at 3 or 4.

4 is not too early for some children. 9 is too early for others.

Can the child concentrate? Listen? Focus? Does he or she like to solve puzzles?

Nothing wrong with setting your kid up for success in anything he or she does.

Fun is very important, but chess, like any other game or sport, can teach life lessons beyond the fun.  The value of hard work, perseverance, grit...all things that chess can help impart to kids if taught right.  The millenials are a generation of slackers and sensation seekers.  They should have played more chess when they were young.

I don't know if I have specific goals really. Not at this point at least. And it's right that all kids are different. I was just wondering if anyone had experience teaching chess to preschoolers and how it went etc.

I think it depends on what kind of teaching you mean. If it's just rules then it's not a big deal. Training is different story. If you play at home and kids are watching it then maybe they will learn moves by themselves like Kasparov, Karpov, Capa, etc. did. Don't push them too much.

The fact that we are human means that we are all different and that makes each person and circumstance unique... There can be no standard age to learn chess. And it depends largely on interest I'm sure it's agreeable chess isn't for everyone regardless of exposure.

I taught my son at 4. He just turned 5 and he is getting to where most of the time he will notice if a peice is hanging and move it. He still won't defend against forks or skewers. I think the toughest concept for a kid is checkmate. I've changed the rules so that to win you just need to capture the king. Every few games, I'll leave mine hanging and he will generally capture it to win.

My daughter just turned 3 and is very interested in joining us when we play. For now I just say no because it makes her more interested (my goal). She will still sit on my lap and watch and I think she might be picking up more of it than I realize.  

I've taught children as young as three. I cannot say that it was entirely successful. The three year old was able to play pawn wars.

My youngest son learned how to set up the chess pieces from diagrams before his fifth birthday. He asked me to play chess with him, so I taught him how. For the first year, he played by his own rules but insisted that I play by those I taught him.

I have seen preschoolers do well in the kindergarten section of the Washington State Elementary Chess Championship. One student in particular placed fifth as a preschooler, then won the event in kindergarten. By early in first grade, he had earned the Queen Award (I describe the Knight Award at http://chessskill.blogspot.com/2011/10/lesson-of-week_18.html).

I dont have the patience to work with very young children due to their limited attention spans .  I prefer to work with teens or adults .  My wife is much better working with young kids . 

I recommend _Chess is Child's Play_ by Laura Sherman.  It's geared towards parents of kids as young as 3.  It tells you how to teach chess to your kids piece by piece.  For example, it shows you how to play some simple pawn games with your child.

Not every kid is a Capablanca.  But your comment raises a good point.  The best way to get a kid interested in an activity is to do that activity yourself often.  If you're having fun at something, your kid will see it and want to join in the fun.

Also, even geniuses can start slow.  Magnus Carlsen showed very little inclination or talent for chess when he was 5.  His talent only became evident when he was 8.

I have this book. It is very good for a parent working with one or two children. It is less useful to a coach working with groups of students.

yyoochess, thank you so much. I will definitely see if I can check Laura Sherman's book from the local library or perhaps get it from amazon. Sounds interesting.

We have a very famous children's poem in Russian called "Adventures of a pawn" (how the pawn goes through all the trouble to become a queen) and my son has been asking me to read it over and over (he loves poetry). Because of the poem he now continuously talks about "korol'" (king) :). I hope it's a beginning of his interest in chess.

When I give him the bag with pieces, he knows more or less where to place them, but we are still very far from actually playing and learning. He is too young still. 

While checking the book on amazon, I found few other nice books in the same category for teaching young children chess. Maybe I will check them out as well.

I have a 4 yr old and a 7 yr old who play and love the game. by the time the 7 yr old joined school chess club in yr 2 she was several hundred games ahead of the other kids. start early and get them to love the game, it should be a great adventure.

I think that in no case you should force a child to learn something. Because ultimately, if a child does not have a desire to engage in this business, sooner or later he will lose interest and as a result, time will be wasted.
I think it would be better to try to create conditions for the interest of the child.
It's one thing when you show a child chess and try to tell him something about them. And another thing is when, for example, you play over the board against another adult in the presence of a child, and then the child himself asks you about chess.

I hope you get what i want to say there...

There is no reason to hurry. Teach them when they show interest and only to the extent they can understand it!

Forget about prodigy stories. There is a 99,999+% chance your children are not prodigies, so just have fun!