Adaptive/Alternate Shoe Tying

Learning to tie your shoes is an important skill for kids!  It's a skill that's encouraged in kindergarten, and expected of elementary age kids.  But, shoe tying is a task that takes some complex skill~  motor planning, bilateral coordination, dexterity, hand strength, visual perceptual skills and visual motor integration are all components that are needed just to tie shoes!  Imagine if your child has deficits in one or more of those skill areas.  That makes learning to tie shoes extra tough!

If you've tried and tried to help your child tie his/her shoes and used several ways to try teach it without success, there is a way that most kids can master.  Usually, when I am teaching shoe tying, kids can always seem to get the first step- crossing over the laces and pulling it tight.  It's the next steps that trip them up- the loops.  So... here's something to try:

Change the way that your child's laces are laced by making a loop as above.  Knot the end of the lace on the inside of the shoe.  Do the same to each side.

Here's the easy part:  have your child hold onto the loops and do the first step of shoe tying~ cross over the laces, and pull tight!

Now, do the first step of shoe tying AGAIN~  cross over the laces, and pull tight!

And there it is!  A tied shoe!

Hooray!  A tied shoe!