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Monday, Mar. 8, 1999

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

Althorp Arandela, 9, plays chess against another student at Schanen Estates Elementary School. Althorp says he sees the game as a challenge. Educators say the challenge of chess enhances students' academic skills.

An educational battlefield

Educators find that playing chess can enhance students' skills

By GUY H. LAWRENCE
Staff Writer

   Seven-year-old Adlai Arandela and his 9-year-old brother, Althorp, stared intensely at the chess board before them at Schanen Estates Elementary School.
   With only kings and pawns left on the board, the nationally ranked players came to a standstill and agreed to a draw.
   The boys say they enjoy playing chess more than family board games like Monopoly or even video games.

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

Chess players from Schanen Estates and Club Estates elementary schools play against each other. More than 1,500 youths will compete in a statewide chess tournament in Corpus Christi Friday through Sunday.

   "It makes you think faster," Adlai said.
   "I just like thinking," Althorp said. "It is a challenge."
   Some people say that challenge enhances students' academic skills and leads to higher scores on standardized tests like the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. One Texas university actively recruits the best chess players from around the country. And in New York, chess instruction is part of the daily curriculum in some schools.
   Lel Arandela credits chess with helping her four sons think more analytically and consider other options to solve problems.
   "In everything they do, they think of what could be some other possible ways to do that," she said.
   Lel Arandela, her husband, Edwin, and their boys, Audy, Aldrin, Althorp and Adlai, have mini-tournaments at home to sharpen their skills. The Arandelas' children started playing chess about three years ago because Edwin Arandela wanted them to learn a challenging game instead of just playing video games, Lel Arandela said.
   "Their dad said it was better for (them), because it involves thinking and analyzing and it is really challenging," she said.
   Debbie Adair, mother of chess players Blair, 8, and Jordan, 6, at Club Estates Elementary School, said her children concentrate for long periods of time when they are playing chess.
   "It helps them learn to focus," Adair said. "They love to compete and they like to challenge each other."
   "Chess is a game you have to concentrate on," Blair said. "If you can concentrate on chess, you can concentrate on other things. You have to predict. You have to think 30 moves ahead."
   

Improved scores

   Those are exactly the kinds of benefits extolled by chess promoters in Texas and other states.
   In most cases, elementary school chess players showed more improvement on the TAAS, said James Liptrap, a chemistry teacher at Klein High School in Spring. Liptrap analyzed the scores of 571 students in the Houston area from 1995 and 1997.

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

Althorp Arandela, 9, (center) and his brother Adlai Arandela, 7, play chess at school against other students. The brothers took an interest in chess after their father urged them to learn a challenging game. The boys and two other brothers sometimes have mini-tournaments at home.

   The greatest score gains were chess players who weren't honor students.
   The analysis showed that regular students improved their scores in the TAAS reading test from 79.5 to 89.4 between third and fifth grade, while the non-chess players' scores improved from 80.6 to 85.1. Also, in math the chess players improved from 77.6 to 85.7, while the non-chess players' scores improved from 73.9 to 79.3.
   "What I was trying to show here is there is an advantage for everyone," he said.
   The only areas where chess-playing students' test scores didn't improve greater than non-players was for students enrolled in a gifted and talented program in reading, and in reading and math among students who scored well on IQ exams, Liptrap said.
   Liptrap, who coaches the Klein High School chess team, said even his students who have some learning disabilities, including attention deficit disorder, show better concentration when playing chess.
   "The major advantage we see in this is an improvement in self-confidence," Liptrap said.
   

Stealth learning

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

Schanen Estates student Althorp Arandela's chess playing has allowed him to use analytical skills used in the game elsewhere in his life, his mother says.

   Other countries, such as Canada, Russia and Zaire, use chess in the classroom to promote achievement, said Tim Redman, an arts and humanities professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Some see chess as a form of stealth learning, said Redman, who heads the university's chess program.
   "The children are just having fun playing the game," Redman said. "They don't realize they are somehow learning."
   The University of Texas at Dallas offers a scholarship to the best high school player from the state tournament, Redman said. The winner still must meet admission requirements, but the university sees the players as intellectually competitive, he said.
   "Chess is a way of identifying who the brighter students are for us," he said.
   

Better self-esteem

   Chess also benefits children socially, especially in inner-city schools, he said. Playing chess boosts students' self-esteem and gives them a sense of control in an environment in which they often don't have it.
   "Students who play chess really believe they can do anything they set their mind to," Redman said.
   In New York, chess promoters have made inroads into classrooms, and members of college clubs tutor elementary school students in chess.
   "Our thinking is that students concentrate better. They learn how to analyze situations," said Craig Fischer, a professor at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
   Students learn to analyze the game and to think the moves through and keep in mind that their opponent is also considering alternatives, he said.
   "We try to make a correlation between real life where you have to analyze many alternatives before you make a decision," Fischer said. "This becomes a very good thinking exercise."
   

`Rigor of the brain'

   In New York City, chess is taught in the inner-city schools by the Chess-in-the-Schools Foundation and reaches 32,000 children in kindergarten through eighth grade both during and after school in 160 schools, said Marley Kaplan, a deputy director at the foundation.
   The foundation targeted disadvantaged schools where 85 percent of the students participate in federal free lunch programs.
   Since 1985, when the nonprofit foundation began the program, officials said they have seen improvements in students' thinking skills, sportsmanship and even school attendance.
   "We know they will show up on chess day," Kaplan said. "We see an increase in these children's self-esteem and that opens them to all kinds of learning.
   "The amount of work going into a chess game is huge," she said. "Most other games don't involve that kind of concentration or that kind of rigor of the brain."
   Staff writer Guy H. Lawrence can be reached at 886-3792 or by e-mail at lawrenceg@caller.com

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