Product Description

A series of Introductory Shogi Textbooks, “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners”: This series is aimed to make it possible for Shogi beginner children to learn and enjoy Shogi with joy.

This book gives you very fundamental and necessary information about Shogi, such as “What Shogi is” or “What moves of pieces are”, so that both small children and their mothers who are totally unfamiliar with Shogi can enjoy learning to play Shogi.

You learn basic Shogi rules and moves of pieces in “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners Vol. 1”. The objective of “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners Vol. 2” is to acquire “basic techniques to play a Shogi game”. Based on this theme, each lesson plan is designed.

When children learn Shogi, not a few of them find difficulties in the next step, which they will have after understanding the basic rules and remembering moves. Even though children have acquired enough knowledge of moves, many of them tend to feel that they are not ready to learn tactics and skilful moves of each piece. And also, they usually don’t have a good guideline for moves that they can follow. They find it difficult to end a game, as well.

“Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners Vol. 2” is a Shogi textbook to solve problems that beginner children often have. This textbook deals with several basic Shogi techniques and knowledges that children can easily understand. For example, Shogi is a game in which players exchange pieces; each piece has its own value; what the efficient way to capture the opponent’s Gyoku is; and what the purpose of using hand piece is, and so on.

Moreover, some detailed rules, such as “Uchi Fu zume” (an illegal move where a player directly checkmated with dropping Fu), are covered. Pieces with two Chinese characters, which are mainly used in tournaments or Shogi classes, are also introduced. So, after finishing this textbook, children may have a goal to participate in “Shogi tournaments for children”. Setting a goal can encourage children to keep their motivations high.

What is a series of Introductory Shogi Textbooks, “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners?

A series of Introductory Shogi Textbooks, “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners” is Shogi textbooks for children who are totally new to Shogi, which are designed and created by Ms. Akiko Nakakura, a ladies professional Shogi player. Consisting of five volumes, this series is aimed at helping beginner children enjoy and play a Shogi game while thinking carefully about what moves they should make. Making a thoughtful move is one of true enjoyments of Shogi. Needless to say, children will be able to play a Shogi game through the use of this series, remembering moves of pieces and Shogi rules. More importantly, children can achieve those enjoyments by learning characteristics of each piece, tactics and techniques

5 Recommended Points of Introductory Shogi Textbook, “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners”

1: Step by Step Approach; Small Steps made by 15-min Daily Lesson

“Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners” is aimed at helping children who are beginners at Shogi enjoy and play a Shogi game. There are lessons for 30 days. To motivate children to keep learning Shogi with joy, a daily lesson doesn’t contain many subjects, but has only one page of practice and one page of explanation, which require only about 15 minutes to finish. Children can expand their knowledge about Shogi step by step through completing these tiered lesson plans.

2: Daily Video Lesson

There is a proverb, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. It is often easier to show something in a picture than to describe it with words. It is the same with Shogi. Introductory Shogi Textbook, “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners” employs video lessons. Reading a QR code on each explanation page, you can take video lessons instructed by Ms. Akaiko Nakakura who is a ladies professional Shogi player and a writer of this textbook.

* Note: Each explanation page has a QR code on top right. Reading the QR code allows you to visit our video lessons. No DVD is included in each textbook. Please note that depend on your internet connection, you may not be able to see our video lessons.

3: Materials Reflecting The Results of Prior Study with Children

We had conducted studies targeted at preschoolers and students in the early elementary grades, before we made a series of Introductory Shogi Textbooks, “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners”. Based on valuable feedbacks from children and their parents, through trial and error processes, we accomplished to make textbooks that offer easily understandable contents for children who are Shogi beginners.
Incidentally, big drawings and review practices on practice-pages are employed, following opinion of those children and parents.

4: “For Parents”; A Section for Parents Who Are Not Familiar with Shogi

Supposedly, parents often learn “something” first, then give their small children a complete picture of “something”.

So, we provide an informative section on explanation pages in a series of Introductory Shogi Textbooks, “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners”. This section is titled “For Parents” and gives parents tips to teach Shogi to their children. This section is good for parents who would wonder how to teach Shogi. They might want to use this section!

5: “Let’s think about this!”; A Section for Parents and Children

The fundamental joy of Shogi is “thinking”. A series of Introductory Shogi Textbooks, “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners” have a section titled “Let’s think about this!” on practice-pages. There are some questions asking about things other than Shogi, for example, “What is the most important for you?”.

Listening carefully to children’s answer, parents may ask more, “Why is it so important for you?”, or “What else do you have?”. These interactions and supports from parents help children improve their abilities to think and have good communications with their parents.

Originally, Shogi is a game to encourage communication between players, regardless of age or gender difference. Some questions are not related to Shogi directly, but through a series of “Shogi Lesson Book for Beginners”, both children and parents surely will enjoy the best part of Shogi, “the act of thinking”.