If you have a child who is struggling in school, you may be desperate to find ways to help them. While you can invest in tutors and tests to see if they qualify for support services, sometimes all you need to help your child is to look to the classics. Chess, for example, can help children in a number of ways to develop better academic skills. 

Chess Improves Memory

One key to winning at chess is to remember your opponent's moves. If you can't predict what your opponent is about to do, the opponent can use the same moves over and over to beat you. Thus, as your student plays chess, they learn to remember how they were beaten in the past in order to devise a way to avoid the same pitfalls, or even better ways to use their opponents' moves to their advantage. 

Chess Improves Problem Solving

Chess is really nothing more than a complicated, constantly changing puzzle. As your child learns to play chess, they learn to anticipate their opponents' moves and to then figure out ways to prevent the opponent from trying to use those moves. The better your child gets at chess, the better they get at solving problems in general, which can help in all school disciplines.

Chess Develops Creative and Logical Thinking

Chess masters have to think logically in order to think about what their opponent will do and then think creatively to try to stop their opponent. These are the same skills that are used in writing a persuasive essay or using math equations to solve a problem. 

Chess Can Improve Intelligence Scores

While the academic abilities described above are impressive, developing these skills does not necessarily make your child smarter. While people like to claim that chess will make kids smarter, science actually backs up the claims. 

Some schools recognize the benefits of chess and will give children time to play chess in school. You don't have to pull your child out of their school and enroll them in a new school that offers chess to see benefits. There are independent programs that teach chess to children. Not only can chess help a student academically, but winning at chess can help a child to develop confidence that can translate to other areas. In any case, having your child give chess classes a try can't hurt, but you have a lot to potentially gain.