Chess-as-a-Learning-Tool Presentation at the North Carolina Association for the Gifted and Talented Conference

Educator and scholastic chess coach will present the rationale for teaching chess to gifted children and demonstrate methods and strategies at the 33rd Annual North Carolina Association for the Gifted and Talented Conference in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, March 15-17, 2006.

Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) March 11, 2006 –- Dennis A. Jones, a chess coach with Atlanta-based Championship Chess, will present “Chess Problems: Challenging, Fun and Creative” at the North Carolina Association for the Gifted and Talented Conference (NCAGT) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, March 15-17, 2006. The NCAGT is North Carolina’s “largest advocacy group for the gifted”; the conference, whose theme is 21st Century Global Challenges, is expected to draw more than 1000 teachers of the gifted, educators, community leaders, as well as parents of gifted children. For more than 20 years, Championship Chess coaches have guided scholastic chess clubs that, consistently, have placed high in state championships.

A former classroom teacher, Jones will demonstrate the teaching tools and strategies that enhance and accelerate learning and improve problem-solving abilities, expand math and reading skills, increase self-esteem and develop concentration and focus. He will also illustrate ways chess addresses cognitive outcomes: visualization, thinking ahead, thinking concretely and abstractly, weighing options and planning ahead.

He will also demonstrate the successful methods and materials of teaching chess that he helped develop with Stephen A. Schneider, who is the director of Championship Chess and the author of The Scholastic Chess Series. The Series includes Chess Basics, Chess Openings I, Endgames Strategies I and a chess readiness activity book, Color My Chess World, that introduces pre-chess activities to very young children. A new volume in the series, Chess Tactics, is due out in the Spring of 2006. Championship Chess coaches have made presentations to various educator groups throughout the country, including at other educational conferences, staff development workshops and home school conventions.

Jones will present problems that address spatial patterns, provide analytic challenges, and allow students to intuit and explain reasoning. With one, two and three steps or more, these activities apply, test and improve strategy and higher thinking skills. Participants will learn tips for implementing an effective scholastic chess program that develops a lifelong learning pursuit for children and opens the door to the world of chess outside the classroom. Championship Chess clubs and their coaches have won local, state, regional and national awards and distinctions. Currently, Championship Chess players are ranked in the top 10 in the state of Georgia and the top 100 in the United States.

The coaches teach lessons in strategy and supervise chess play among public, private and home schooled students. The reproducible workbooks created for the Scholastic Chess Series are designed for students who are beginners in chess, as well as for those who play and are ready to improve their skills. Each of these titles has a supporting video with Coach Steve Schneider teaching key lessons that integrate with the print materials.

Chess Basics is the initial workbook for students. Step-by-step, it introduces the chess pieces one at a time, not only demonstrating how they move and capture but, also, how they work together. Chess Openings I introduces the openings that are most popular with beginning scholastic players, and Endgames Strategies I prepares players for the most common endgames of chess. Chess Tactics builds upon Chess Openings I, and is ideal for the beginning player as well as the tournament player. Chess Tactics’ challenging puzzles will enable beginner and advanced players to learn key tactics critical to success in the middle game.    

Also in the Scholastic Chess Series is Color My Chess World, a chess readiness activity book, with an accompanying music CD of short, fun songs that invite kids to dance and sing along, that builds the skills to make the introduction of chess easy ― and fun ― for very young children.

Championship Chess is a division of Teachable Tech, Inc., an award-winning company of curriculum writers. Teachable Tech has designed curriculum for pre-K and K-12 for such diverse clients as the American Red Cross, the National Park Service, Social and Health Services in association with SAMHSA/HHR, CNN, Turner Broadcasting, ABC News, HBO and The Weather Channel.

For more information about starting a scholastic chess club and/or purchasing materials in the Scholastic Chess Series, contact:

Dennis Jones or Stephen Schneider
3565 Evans Road
Atlanta, GA 30340
(888) 328-7373 or (770) 939-4596
Fax: 770-493-1115
Championship Chess: www.championshipchess.net

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