Chutes and Ladders rules (by Russ):
1. Throw away the evil spinner. Ours was so tight it was not usable anyway, which led to the introduction of first one, then later two dice.
2. Use 2 dice (six sided) of different colors (we use white and red).
3. On your turn, roll both dice. You must move the amount on the white die, but the red die is optional.
4. Tennis shoe rule: chutes are climbable from the bottom. You do still slide down from the top. With upward chutes and 2 dice doing things, sometimes you might want to slide down.
This makes it very rare to have to go down a chute you don't want to go down. It teaches the child to make a wise choice about whether to use the red die or not. It also helps with counting the pips on the die and adding the pips from 2 dice together. It makes the game MUCH quicker so you can play more games and have more winners, making winning/losing not such a big deal. "Remember the fun is in the playing." You may need to implement rule changes gradually rather than all at once.