Articles for parents and for teachers and coaches

An exercise is not finished the moment the right move has been found. It becomes especially valuable when a child can explain what they saw, which options they considered, and why the solution works.

Parents can support the conversation with a few open questions:

What do you notice first in this position?

Which pieces are under attack?

What options have you found?

What might happen after this move?

Why do you think this is the right solution?

Only after parent and child have thought for themselves and given reasons for their answer is the protected solutions area used as a check. In this way the exercise leads from merely finding a move to genuinely understanding it.

The point is not to work through as many pages as possible as quickly as possible. What matters is understanding a position, developing a solution of one’s own, and later recognising what has been learned in a real game.

Regularity helps more than rare, long sessions. Short shared time — calm, focused and without performance pressure — is often more effective than an afternoon spent “getting through” as many exercises as possible.

The CHESS MONKEYS workbooks support this process with carefully chosen exercises that build on one another. Tests close important learning sections. They are there to consolidate what has been learned, not to grade children.

Parents accompany their child not as examiners, but as interested learning partners. After purchasing a workbook they can check their own thinking in the protected solutions area — only after thinking for themselves first.

As with a house, in chess the foundation decides how securely everything else will stand. It is not a matter of putting as many exercises as possible in front of children.

What matters is which exercise they solve, in which order it appears, and how what has been learned is then consolidated and transferred to new situations.

Every exercise in the CHESS MONKEYS series serves a clear learning purpose. It introduces a motif, consolidates an idea already known, or asks for that idea to be applied in a new setting. New demands are introduced in steps that can be followed.

Familiar motifs return in changed form. In this way what has been learned is consolidated and increasingly transferred to unknown positions. The number of exercises on a topic follows its importance and how often it occurs in practical play.

The CHESS MONKEYS workbooks give lessons a structure that can be followed. Exercises that build on one another can be introduced together, worked on independently, repeated and checked in tests.

A typical sequence combines introducing and working on a motif together with independent practice. Pair work and jointly explaining solutions keep the lesson lively without giving up concentration on the position.

A playful approach here does not mean doing whatever comes to mind. The order of motifs stays clear. Playful elements — searching together, explaining an idea, or a short section test — support the learning path rather than replacing it.

The clear progression makes learning goals visible and helps to teach tactical motifs in a sensible order.

In learning chess, the content of an exercise is not all that matters. Equally important are its timing, its difficulty and its link to what a child has already learned.

Five teaching principles carry the series: precise selection of exercises, careful progression, active solving, repetition and transfer, and a balanced mix of motifs.

Active solving is at the centre. Children should first observe, think and decide for themselves. A solution is used afterwards, to check the result and to understand it better.

Familiar motifs return in changed form. Tests close important learning sections. The result is not only short-term success on a single exercise, but a foundation on which further learning can rest.