Players spin a 1–6 spinner and move their pawn along a hundred-square grid, climbing a ladder when they land at its foot and sliding down a chute when they land at its top. There are no decisions; the first to reach square 100 wins.
Why it may be useful
The board is a linear number track, the exact feature studies link to gains in counting and number-line estimates, but only when a child says each number aloud while moving. Nothing in the printed rules asks for that.
Keep in mind
There are no decisions at all, so adults find it dull, and the benefit only appears if the child says the numbers aloud while moving the pawn.
Written 2026-09-15 · editorial assessment, not a measured effect · how we rate →
What the game is
Chutes and Ladders is a race along a hundred numbered squares. The board is a ten-by-ten grid, numbered one to a hundred in a snaking line, with ladders that carry a pawn up and chutes that drop it back down. Hasbro publishes the American version, a 1943 renaming of the much older Snakes and Ladders. The current box is marked ages three and up, comes with three pawns and a spinner, and states that no reading is required.
Two to four players depending on the edition, and fifteen to twenty minutes a game. Setup is putting the pawns at the start and deciding who spins first. There is nothing else to it: no cards, no money, no choices. The whole game is the numbered track, which is exactly why it is here, because the numbered track is the part with research behind it.
What you actually do
You spin the arrow, get a number from one to six, and move your pawn that many squares along the numbered path. Finish on the foot of a ladder and you climb it. Finish on the head of a chute and you slide down. The next player does the same, and the first pawn to reach square one hundred wins; editions differ on whether the last spin has to be exact. There are no decisions at any point, which is why adults find it tedious and small children do not. The one thing that changes what a child gets out of it is whether they say each number aloud as the pawn moves, seven, eight, nine, rather than counting one, two, three from where they started.
What it exercises
Says the numerals up to a hundred in order while moving a pawn
Finds a numbered square on a grid that snakes back and forth
Counts on from a starting number rather than restarting at one
Compares two positions to see who is further along
Takes turns and waits, with a visible finish line
Why we rate it Low Worksheet score 46 / 100
FitHow much real knowledge or skill does the play itself make you use?40weight 45%
Fit is low, at 40, and deliberately. The board is a linear number track, which is the exact feature the research is about, so the useful part is genuinely inside the material. But the game does nothing to make a child use it: a pawn can be moved silently, or moved by an adult, and then nothing happens at all.
TransferWill what you practise here work outside the game?55weight 30%
Transfer is the highest score we give this game, at 55, because here something was actually measured. Randomized studies of linear number boards found improvements in counting, numeral recognition, and number-line estimates that lasted weeks. The catch is that those studies used plain research boards and a counting-aloud rule, not this box with its chutes.
PracticeDoes the game make you use that skill again and again, as it gets harder?45weight 25%
Practice sits at 45. A single game gives roughly twenty moves each, and children reach the ceiling quickly: once counting to a hundred is secure there is nothing left to practice. The research used four fifteen-minute sessions, which is about the useful lifetime of the thing. After six, most children refuse to play it at all.
What the evidence says
Research-backedPublished research has studied this game, or the exact mechanic it is built on.
Research-backed, and the level is precise about what was measured: the mechanic, not the product. Ramani and Siegler (2008) and Siegler and Ramani (2009) gave low-income preschoolers four fifteen-minute sessions with a linear one-to-ten number board and found broad gains in numerical knowledge that held for nine weeks, while a circular board and a color board did not. Whyte and Bull (2008) found the same with three- and four-year-olds, and Laski and Siegler (2014) showed a board up to a hundred works when children count on from their square. A 2025 meta-analysis pools these trials. Every study used researcher-made boards without chutes.
Editorial assessment - not a measured scientific effect.
Fit
40/100
Transfer
55/100
Practice
45/100
Why it makes the cut
Pass, narrowly — the drama of a long chute or a lucky ladder genuinely delights three- to five-year-olds, even though older children and adults quickly tire of a game with no choices.
Research-backed
Research-backed for the mechanic rather than this exact product: randomized studies of plain linear number boards found lasting gains in counting and number-line estimation, though none of those boards had chutes or ladders.
Also sold as Snakes and Ladders by many publishers; any version with a numbered 1–100 grid works the same way.
Age guidance
Ages 3-6
Topics
STEM
Play styles
Multiplayer
Tags
2–4 players · 15–20 min · Numbered 1–100 track · Pure luck · No reading
The board is a linear number track, exactly the feature randomized studies link to real gains, but nothing in the rules makes a child actually count while moving the pawn.
