Two long-term goals students achieve through chess:

1. Development of analytical, synthetic and decision-making skills, which they can transfer to real life
2. Insight and experience into the nature of competition which will help them in any competitive endeavor. .

Chess is also clearly a problem-solving tool. Its an “ideal way to study decision-making and problem-solving because it is a closed system with clearly defined rules” (Horgan, 1988). When faced with a problem, the first step is to “analyze [it] in a preliminary and impressionistic way: sizing up the problem” (Horgan, 1988, p. 3), possibly looking for patterns or similarity to previous experiences. “Similarity judgements may involve high levels of abstract reasoning” (Horgan, 1988, p. 3). As in mathematics, which might be defined as the study of patterns, pattern recognition in chess is of prime importance in problem solving. After recognizing similarity and pattern, a global strategy can be developed to solve the problem. This involves generating alternatives, a creative process. A good chess player, like a good problem solver, has “acquired a vast number of interrelated schemata” (Horgan, 1988, p. 3), allowing for good alternatives to quickly and easily come to mind. These alternatives must then be evaluated, using a process of calculation known as decision tree analysis, where the chess player/problem solver is calculating the desirability of future events based on the alternative being analyzed. Horgan (1988) found that “the calculation may go several to eight or ten moves ahead. This stage requires serious concentration and memory abilities…[or]…visual imagery” (p.4). Child chess experts were studied by Schneider, Gruber, Gold, and Opwis (1993), and were found able to store larger “chunks” of information, or “pre-stored schema,” than were non-expert adults, and were able to recall them much faster than the adults when reconstructing a position. Once a suitable alternative for solving the problem is reached and implemented, it can be evaluated. Chess players, like all good problem solvers, will go back and evaluate the outcome of a solution to increase their level of expertise. “Experts and potential experts want to know, even when they are successful, if there was a better alternative available to them” (Horgan 1988, p.6). According to Bloom (1956), this evaluation process is one of the most important goals of learning and should therefore be considered one of the highest educational objectives of our schools. “The tendency of chess to develop skills which may be used to deal with the complexities of life make it a valuable tool for learning. Chess needs to be an elective in the public school curriculum” (Schmidt, p. 6).

Teaching chess to children involves more than just playing the game. Chess training has the advantage of being an art, a science, and a sport (Wojcio, 1990). The search for patterns and similarity and the generation of alternatives is accelerated and refined in the teaching process. Players are trained to play both faster and slower. Horgan (1988) found the “longer analysis time [of slower play] was correlated with a deeper level of analysis…[while faster play]…develops intuitions and a global perspective” (p.7). Chess as a deductive system has been used effectively in the classroom for introducing the study of formal Euclidean geometry (Whitman, 1975). Pattern recognition, calculation, abstract reasoning, concentration, intuition, deduction, visual imagery, analysis and evaluation are factors widely recognized as attributes of intelligence. Chess has the added benefits of teaching “impatient kids the value of hard work and delayed gratification” (Drummond, 2000) and possibly of channeling anger in a socially acceptable, safe and controlled environment (Vail, 1995). Educators at Roberto Clemente School in New York report that after instituting a chess program, “incidents of suspension and outside altercations have decreased by at least 60%” (Palm, 1990). It is for these reasons that educators are adding chess to their collection of effective strategies for reaching resistant or disconnected youth Chess increases strategic thinking skills, stimulates intellectual creativity, and improves problem-solving ability while raising self-esteem.

• When youngsters play chess they must call upon higher-order thinking skills, analyze actions and consequences, and visualize future possibilities;
• In countries where chess is offered widely in schools, students exhibit excellence in the ability to recognize complex patterns and consequently excel in math and science (Milat, 1997).

In a Texas study of 571 regular (non-honors) elementary school students, Liptrap (1997) found the 67 who participated in a school chess club showed twice the improvement of 504 non-chessplayers in Reading and Mathematics standard scores between third and fifth grades on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills.

In a 1992 New Brunswick, Canada, study, using 437 fifth graders split into three groups, experimenting with the addition of chess to the math curriculum, Gaudreau found increased gains in math problem-solving and comprehension proportionate to the amount of chess in the curriculum (Ferguson, 1995, p. 11).

In a Zaire study conducted by Dr. Albert Frank, employing 92 students age 16-18, the chess-playing experimental group showed a significant advancement in spatial, numerical and administrative-directional abilities, along with verbal aptitudes, compared to the control group. The improvements held true regardless of the final chess skill level attained (Ferguson, 1995, p. 2).

A four-year study in the United States, though not deemed statistically stable due to some switching of students between the control groups and experimental group, has the chess-playing experimental group consistently outperforming the control groups engaged in other thinking development programs, using measurements from the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Ferguson, 1983).

The Venezuela "Learning to Think Project," which trained 100,000 teachers to teach thinking skills, and which involved a sample of 4,266 second grade students, reached a general conclusion that chess, methodologically taught, is an incentive system sufficient to accelerate the increase of IQ in elementary age children of both sexes at all socio-economic levels (Ferguson, 1995, p.8).

The New York City Schools Chess Program included more than 3,000 inner-city children in more than 100 public schools between 1986 and 1990. Based on academic and anecdotal records only, Palm (1990) states that the program has proven:

• Chess dramatically improves a child's ability to think rationally.
• Chess increases cognitive skills.
• Chess improves children's communication skills and aptitude in recognizing patterns, therefore:
• Chess results in higher grades, especially in English and Math studies.
• Chess builds a sense of team spirit while emphasizing the ability of the individual.
• Chess teaches the value of hard work, concentration and commitment.
• Chess instills in young players a sense of self-confidence and self-worth.
• Chess makes a child realize that he or she is responsible for his or her own actions and must accept their consequences.
• Chess teaches children to try their best to win, while accepting defeat with grace.
• Chess provides an intellectual, competitive forum through which children can assert hostility, i.e. "let off steam," in an acceptable way.
• Chess can become a child's most eagerly awaited school activity, dramatically improving attendance.
• Chess allows girls to compete with boys on a non-threatening, socially acceptable plane.
• Chess helps children make friends more easily because it provides an easy, safe forum for gathering and discussion.
• Chess allows students and teachers to view each other in a more sympathetic way.
• Chess, through competition, gives kids a palpable sign of their accomplishments.
• Chess provides children with a concrete, inexpensive and compelling way to rise above the deprivation and self-doubt which are so much a part of their lives (Palm, 1990, pp. 5-7).

A study by Margulies (1993) using a sub-set of the New York City Schools Chess Program produced statistically significant results concluding that chess participation enhances reading performance. A related study, conducted in two U.S. cities over two years, selected two classrooms in each of five schools. The group receiving instruction in chess and logic obtained significantly higher reading scores than the control groups, which received additional classroom instruction in basic education (reading, math or social studies) (Margulies, 1993).

Ferguson (1995) summarizes the findings from the above studies when answering the question, “Why does chess have this impact [on children]?” by listing seven significant factors:

• Chess accommodates all modality strengths.
• Chess provides a far greater quantity of problems for practice.
• Chess offers immediate punishments and rewards for problem solving.
• Chess creates a pattern or thinking system that, when used faithfully, breeds success.
• Competition. Competition fosters interest, promotes mental alertness, challenges all students, and elicits the highest levels of achievement.
• A learning environment organized around games has a positive affect on student’s attitudes toward learning. This affective dimension acts as a facilitator of cognitive achievement. Instructional gaming is one of the most motivational tools in the good teacher’s repertoire. Children love games. Chess motivates them to become willing problem solvers and spend hours quietly immersed in logical thinking. These same young people often cannot sit still for fifteen minutes in the traditional classroom.
• Chess supplies a variety and quality of problems (Ferguson, 1995, p. 12).

1. Chess removes barriers between students.
2. Chess gives students at least one reason to come to school.
3. Chess builds rapport between students and adults.
4. Chess honors non-traditional cognitive styles.
5. Chess builds life skills and critical thinking.
6. Chess builds metacognition as students learn to examine their own thinking.
7. Chess integrates different types of thinking.
8. Chess challenges and expands our understanding of intelligence.

The earliest study, produced in 1975, took place in Belgium, where Christiaen found a chess-playing experimental group of 20 fifth graders experienced a statistically significant gain in cognitive development (IQ) over a control group, using Piaget's tests for cognitive development (Ferguson, 1995). The experimental group received 42 hours of chess instruction over the course of one year (sixth grade). Perhaps more noteworthy, they also did significantly better in their regular school testing, as well as in standardized testing administered by an outside agency which did not know the identity of the two groups. Quoting Dr. Adriaan de Groot: "In addition, the Belgium study appears to demonstrate that the treatment of the elementary, clear-cut and playful subject matter can have a positive effect on motivation and school achievement generally... " (Ferguson, 1995, p. 3). Dullea (1982) believes this study by Dr. Christiaen needs support, extension and confirmation, but also provides “scientific support for what we have known all along – chess makes kids and adults smarter!”