Frank Ho, a Canadian certified math teacher, coined the learning centre term Math and Chess and he also founded the world's first math and chess learning centre by creating the world's first math and chess integrated workbooks for elementary students in Vancouver, Canada. He invented Frankho Symbolic Chess Language, intriguing Frankho Chess Maze, and also an unique new chess teaching set. He published math and chess teaching theoretic basis in a Canadian math journal. The USA Illinois research data has shown statistically significant that Ho Math and Chess teaching method increases children's math marks and also improves children's critical thinking skills. The Ho Math and Chess Teaching Set can improve children's memory by playing half-blind chess. More details, please visit www.mathandchess.com.
The Effect of Math and Chess Integrated Instruction on Math Scores
John BUKY, Education Consultant
Frank HO, Canada certified math teacher
The Chess Academy, Chicago, USA, June 2008
Research studies have shown that chess can be used as an effective game-based teaching method. However, all the past studies used chess as a separate instructional tool. There were no math contents in chess instruction provided and there was no math and chess integrated workbook used. This study examined the effect on pupils’ math scores when a truly integrated math and chess workbook was used as an instructional practice workbook. The results show that the integrated math and chess workbook significantly increased pupils’ math scores between pre-tests and post-tests among grade 1 to grade 8 pupils.
Key Words: math and chess; math and chess instruction, math and chess integrated workbook; math and chess integrated workbook; mathematics scores of the students
Introduction
Research papers have demonstrated that chess instruction improves analytical reasoning, problem solving skills, and academic achievement (Chrisiaen & Verholfstadt (1978); Frank & D’Hondt (1979); Smith & Cage (2000)). Research conducted by Gaudreau (1992) shows no significant differences among the groups on basic calculations. These research studies point to the direction that chess has strong effect on improving children’s cognitive ability than their arithmetic computation ability. By teaching math and chess as two separate subjects, children do not have opportunities to work on basic arithmetic operations using acquired chess knowledge, this may explain why by playing chess, it may not statistically significant improve children’s basic arithmetic computation ability.
How to maximize the benefits of chess instruction in such a way that not only chess benefits children’s cognitive development, but also their computation ability? All the past chess instruction research studies have used chess instruction as an independent teaching tool and it is not truly integrated with math instruction. The author Frank Ho created a math and chess integrated workbook. The theoretical basis of how math and chess are integrated has been published by Ho (2006). We believe that with the creation of truly integrated math and chess workbooks, pupils will be able to increase their computation ability by working on these math and chess integrated workbooks. This is particularly important for those children who have no interest in playing chess, but they could still get benefit of chess instruction by working on math and chess integrated workbooks.
No research has been done before on the effects of using math and chess integrated workbook, this study will compare the effect of pupils’ math computation ability before using the math and chess integrated workbook and after using it to see if there is a significant difference.
Method
One hundred and nineteen pupils, in grade 1 to grade 8, from five public elementary schools in Chicago, Illinois, USA, participated in the after-school program for 120 minutes, twice a week, for a total of 60 hours of instruction. None of the students has possessed any substantial knowledge in chess. The study began by administering pre-tests in the first week of this study at the beginning of the program on 10/23/06 and a post-test was conducted at the end of the program on 3/28/07. Tests of TONF (The Compass Learning Explorer Online Diagnostic Tool was used for both the pre-test and post-test. The Compass Learning Explorer Assessment meets the requirements as a true valid and reliable criterion-referenced assessment tool.) were given to all pupils for both tests. Each lesson consisted of lecturing, practice on math and chess integrated worksheets and chess playing.
Results
Paired t test was used to analyze the data. The results of this study shows significantly different on their math scores for all grade 1 to grade 8 pupils between pre-test and post-test at level of p is less than 0.01.
Group
Group One
Group Two
Mean
36.46
55.45
SD
15.82
19.37
SEM
1.45
1.78
N
119
119
t = 12.8729
Discussion
The results of this study demonstrate that a truly integrated math and chess workbook can help significantly improve pupil’s math scores. Our observations show that the effect of using a truly integrated math and chess workbook also provides mental entertainment and thought by pupils as more fun than traditional computation practices. Pupils were able to sit longer when working on math and chess integrated workbook than working on traditional computation worksheets.
The result of this research is particularly interesting for children who do not have a high interest in playing chess since the math and chess integrated workbook involves visualization, analyzing, spatial relation and data processing, these types of problems provide high order cognitive skills. Without spending substantial time on playing chess, we believe that children can get the similar benefits of playing chess on cognitive effects by working on math and chess integrated workbooks. This may require further study.
Why children like to work on math and chess integrated workbook than on the traditional computation worksheets? Math and chess integrated work has visual images, chess symbols, directions, spatial relation, and tables; all these are stimuli to kids and keep their interests high while working on computation problems. This also gives children ample opportunities to think visually. Most of the time, the computation questions themselves are not written for children to work on immediately but for children to "create" themselves and these questions have to be actually "mapped" out by following directions and children love them. Children learn best while having fun.
References
Chrisiaen & Verholfstadt, (1978) “Chess and cognitive development”, Nederlandse Tydschrift voor de Psychology en haar Grensbebieden 36, 561-582.
Frank & D’Hondt, (1979) “Aptitudes and learning chess in Zaire”, Psychopathologie Africane, 15, 81-98.
Gaudreau (1992), “Etude Comparative sur les Apprentissages en Mathematiques 5e Annee”, June manuscript
Ho (2006), “Enriching math using chess”, Journal of the British Columbia Association of Mathematics Teachers, British Columbia, Canada, Vector, Volume 47, Issue 2.
Smith & Cage (2000), “The effects of chess instruction on the mathematics achievement of Southern, rural, Black secondary students”, Research in the Schoo
- Related Videos
- Related Articles
- Ask / Related Q&A
- The Effect of Math and Chess Integrated Instruction on Math Scores
- Using Chess to Teach Math in Elementary Schools
- How to Buy a Specialty Math Learning Center Franchise
- How to Find a Good Math Tutor?
- What is Ho Math
- How I Become a Better Math Tutor
- How to Buy Franchised Math Learning Center
- Finding Math and Chess Learning Center as Easy as 1 2 3
My Experience of Coaching Mathcounts Math Contest Preparation
By: Frank Ho | 23/11/2009This article is about comparing the MATHCOUNTS results of students whom I coached in 1999 and 2000, with different methods in a private learning centre - Ho Math and Chess. I feel the main reason of improvements was due to different coaching methods used in these two years. Students want to participate BC MATHCOUNTS as individuals may find this paper resourceful since individual participation is allowed in 2002/2003 in BC, Canada .
My Experience of Coaching Mathcounts Math Contest Preparation
By: Frank Ho | 23/11/2009This article is about comparing the MATHCOUNTS results of students whom I coached in 1999 and 2000, with different methods in a private learning centre - Ho Math and Chess. I feel the main reason of improvements was due to different coaching methods used in these two years. Students want to participate BC MATHCOUNTS as individuals may find this paper resourceful since individual participation is allowed in 2002/2003 in BC, Canada .
My Experience of Coaching Mathcounts Math Contest Preparation
By: Frank Ho | 23/11/2009This article is about comparing the MATHCOUNTS results of students whom I coached in 1999 and 2000, with different methods in a private learning centre - Ho Math and Chess. I feel the main reason of improvements was due to different coaching methods used in these two years. Students want to participate BC MATHCOUNTS as individuals may find this paper resourceful since individual participation is allowed in 2002/2003 in BC, Canada .
How to Use Chess to Improve Math
By: Frank Ho | 23/11/2009Some math educators seem to feel math problems can be divided into 2 parts, one is pure computation and the other is problem solving - this claim is evident by examining the textbooks used in schools. When looking at the worksheets offered for elementary students, this seems to be very logic since there is “nothing” could be related to numbers used in the computational problems to enhance thinking ability.
How to find a good math learning center?
By: Frank Ho | 23/11/2009The most two important ingredients are the teaching material and the instructor. There are many math learning centers who have not developed materials in a systematic and consistent way, they simply collect each tutor's lecture notes and bind them together and call them "the most valuable material developed by a group of outstanding scholars''.
Using Chess to Teach Math in Elementary Schools
By: Frank Ho | 23/11/2009Chess has been heralded as a miracle to help children develop their math skills. How true is it? After my over 10 years of research and teaching of math, I think the answer is not a simple yes or no, rather it depends on how chess instruction is delivered. If chess is delivered as a pure game and taught in a way that it has nothing to do with math then the impact on math learning is minimum. On the other hand, if chess is integrated into math worksheets then the effect is more significant.
Master Math Basics Before Grade 4
By: Frank Ho | 23/11/2009There are so many cases in my teaching life, which the students did not master their basics such as addition, subtraction, multiplication or division and then in their later life these unskilled basics have had dramatic impact on their math ability but unfortunately they were not aware of it.
How to Find a Good Vancouver Summer Program on Math
By: Frank Ho | 23/11/2009We have been running an math specialty learning center in Vancouver for over 10 years and also both of our children went to all kinds of summer programs in Vancouver so we would like to share our own experience on how to find a good summer math camp or math program offered by learning centers in Vancouver. There are a few tale signs one can use to screen summer programs and these earlier warning signs can be used equally to evaluate summer programs offered in other cities as well.
How to Teach Math (Elementary Math)
By: Frank Ho | 11/11/2009 | K-12 EducationYesterday I was teaching a grade one girl and she had some trouble to figure out the answers with questions such as ? + 5 = 11 but when given the question 6 + 5 to her, she could do it with ease. So clearly the reverse thinking presents a bit difficulty to her. She does not have any learning disability and is eager to learn question. In 2-hour lesson she sit in front of me, she never asked for any breaks but continually asked me for more problems to work on. At the same time I was thinking about
How can you tell if a Math and Chess tutoring centre is a math and chess really integrated one
By: Frank Ho | 09/11/2009 | TutoringSome tutoring centres might offer programs with the program title “math and chess”. A math tutoring centre Ho Math and Chess also offers math and chess programs. Many parents and students got confused because of all these confusing names. How can parents or students tell one math and chess program from the other? We attempt to shed some light on how one can tell if a program is a “real and genuine” math and chess integrated program and how it will affect a child’s learning in math ability.
Why fraction is so difficult?
By: Frank Ho | 06/10/2009 | K-12 EducationWhy fraction is so difficult? Because it is too powerful. Many have thought that fractions are difficult to learn for students because the concepts of fractions were not explained to students. Many research papers are written on how to “teach” fractions to students. Fraction is difficult for students because it “inherently” has some powerful properties, which no other numbers can even come close when comparing to fraction.
Students Need to Have Basic Mental Math Ability
By: Frank Ho | 09/08/2009 | K-12 EducationIn our over fifteen years of teaching math experience, we have witnessed how important it is for students to have basic mental math ability. What is basic mental math ability? We are not talking about how fast a student can do 15 times 16 in a few seconds or if a students can remember the ratio of a circumference to its diameter to 10th decimal place.
How to Buy Franchised Math Learning Center
By: Frank Ho | 27/06/2009 | K-12 EducationThe era of using the idea of “cut and paste” some math worksheets together to open a math learning center has long gone. Children today living in a world which has a landslide difference from their parents, urban children do not run around in the rice fields and they hardly play with their neighbourhood children any more. Many children grow up surrounded by computer games and cell phones and downloaded music and they watch video clips on their cell phones.
Master Math Basics Before Grade 4
By: Frank Ho | 27/06/2009 | TutoringThere are so many cases in my teaching life, which the students did not master their basics such as addition, subtraction, multiplication or division and then in their later life these unskilled basics have had dramatic impact on their math ability but unfortunately they were not aware of it.
Math Worksheets Children Like
By: Frank Ho | 27/06/2009 | TutoringMany children like chess, why? Simply put, it is a game and it is fun and children can play it without using a computer. Can you image nowadays that parents are telling me that their children spend too much time on computers playing games? Parents do not want to see children continue to use computer at learning centers any more since their children become near-sighted by spending too much time on the computer. This article is not about if the use of computer could potentially harm children’s eye
The Future Trend of Math Learning Center
By: Frank Ho | 27/06/2009 | TutoringWill the way of math teaching change in the future? I think so, especially in the elementary schools. The idea of just giving traditional math worksheets to children for them to work on and expect them to do math well will become an increasingly unpopular method of teaching math. It is boring and it is not what children wanted and children had never given any choices as to what kinds of worksheets they wanted, they were simply told to work on them.