Will memorizing a mountain of related chess positions help you to learn? Have you spent untold time studying a chess idea and then found that you can't remember it in a game? Education research, says Kevin Cripe, has found that optimal learning is based largely on the structure of problem sets and your brain's ability to understand similarities and differences. In The Learning Spiral, the author contends that you will actually absorb the game's concepts faster with seemingly random but carefully selected puzzles than with traditional, step-by-step teaching techniques. The key is that this is closer to real-life chess play, where nobody tells you the "theme" of the position in front of you.

With twenty-five years' experience getting underprivileged kids to achieve beyond all expectations, Cripe now takes his holistic instructional methods to the chess arena. Designed for both chess novices and their coaches, The Learning Spiral sets out the theory, explains how it works, and then applies it with more than 400 positions for the student to solve.

So go ahead, analyze, differentiate and improve quickly!

An elementary-school teacher and chess coach in Modesto, California, Kevin Cripe is building a long-term chess instruction program in Central America.