How Chess Quietly Boosts Your Child's Grades in Math and Reading

Imagine a school that takes away one math class every week — and replaces it with a game. No extra homework. No extra tutoring. Just a chessboard.

Would you expect grades to go up or down?

Researchers actually tried this. And the results might surprise you.

The Denmark Experiment: Less Math Class, Better Math Scores

In the city of Aarhus, Denmark, schools ran a real experiment with almost 500 primary school children in grades 1 to 3. For about three-quarters of a school year, one out of every four weekly math lessons was replaced with a chess-based lesson instead of normal math teaching.

The children in the chess group did not get extra math time. If anything, they got less direct math instruction than their classmates. Yet replacing one weekly mathematics lesson with a lesson based on chess instruction led to an improvement in subsequent math test scores of around 0.10 to 0.18 standard deviations.

That might sound like a small number, but researchers explained what it really means in classroom terms: this gain was roughly equal to one-third of a school year of extra math learning for third graders. That is a real jump — earned through a game, not extra worksheets.

A Kindergarten Study From China: More Than Just Math

A 2025 study looked at young children in two kindergartens in China. One school taught chess as part of the normal daily curriculum. The other ran it as an after-school club. Both were compared to children who had no chess lessons at all.

The researchers tested the children before and after several months of chess lessons, and the results were striking. Children who learned chess showed significant improvements in attention, memory, logical thinking, patience, self-discipline, mathematics scores, and reading scores compared to children who did not learn chess.

To put that into simple numbers: in one kindergarten, the math scores of children learning chess jumped from an average of 70 to 85 after the program, while children without chess only moved from 70 to 72. Reading scores told the same story — the chess group climbed from 72 to 88, while the other group barely moved, from 72 to 74.

The researchers were also careful to explain why this might happen. They pointed out that chess requires children to pay close attention to the board, remember piece positions and rules, and use logical thinking to plan ahead and predict an opponent's next move — all skills that carry over directly into schoolwork.

What Teachers in New York City Are Seeing

It's not just laboratory studies. Chess in the Schools, an organization that has taught chess to over 500,000 children in New York City's public schools, surveys its teachers every year. The results, based on classroom teacher feedback, are hard to ignore:

• 82% of teachers reported improved understanding of math concepts in their students
• 91% of teachers reported improved ability to concentrate
• 97% of teachers reported that chess had a meaningful positive influence on their students

These are teachers who see their students every single day — in the classroom, doing homework, taking tests. When almost every teacher notices a difference, it's worth paying attention.

So Why Does a Board Game Help With School Subjects?

Chess doesn't feel like schoolwork to a child. It feels like play. But underneath the fun, the brain is doing very "school-like" things:

• Counting and pattern recognition — every chess move involves counting squares, comparing piece values, and spotting patterns. This is close cousin to basic math thinking.
• Reading and following steps carefully — understanding chess notation, rules, and instructions builds the same careful reading habits used in comprehension exercises.
• Sitting still and paying attention — a chess game can't be won by a wandering mind. Kids build the muscle of concentration, one move at a time.
• Planning ahead — good chess players think two or three moves into the future. This "if I do this, then that happens" thinking is exactly what helps in solving math word problems.

None of this feels like studying to a child. It feels like a fun challenge with a friend or a coach. That's exactly why it works so well — kids don't get tired of "practicing," because they don't realize that's what they're doing.

The Best Part: Any Child Can Start

You don't need your child to be a math genius or a natural reader before starting chess. In fact, the Denmark study found something else interesting: children who were unhappier at school or found regular lessons boring often gained the most from chess lessons — perhaps because chess gave them a different, more enjoyable way into learning.

That means chess isn't just for kids who are already doing well. It can be an especially useful tool for kids who need a fresh way to connect with school subjects.

Give Your Child This Head Start

Between the ages of 6 and 13, children's brains are especially ready to build new thinking habits. The studies above show that a simple, fun activity — with no extra homework and no extra pressure — can support real gains in math and reading.

At PrimeChess.org, our online classes are built around exactly this idea: making chess fun, structured, and easy to follow, so your child builds these thinking skills naturally, one lesson at a time — no chess experience needed, for either you or your child.