Extracurricular activities and chess: ways to develop logical thinking in primary school children

The article presents the results of a study of the influence of chess lessons as part of extracurricular activities on the development of logical thinking in primary school students. A pedagogical experiment was conducted at the State Budgetary Educational Institution School № 2083 in Moscow with the participation of 68 primary school students, divided into experimental and control groups. The Logical Steps program developed by the authors demonstrated high efficiency: children who played chess showed a significant improvement in the skills of classification, analysis, establishing cause-and-effect relationships and forecasting. Of particular scientific value is the identified pattern of leveling gender differences in the development of logical thinking in children who regularly play chess. The key criteria for the effectiveness of chess lessons were established: consistency, optimal balance of theory and practice, interdisciplinary integration. An innovative method of visualizing individual achievements of students is proposed, which contributes to the formation of sustainable motivation for intellectual development. Practical recommendations for teachers on organizing extracurricular activities using chess as a means of developing logical thinking in younger students are formulated.