By Lindsay Fiori

The Journal Times, Racine

RACINE, Wis. (AP) — Area kindergarten teachers have noticed students increasingly entering school without having learned to tie their own shoes or zip their own coats.

It’s something especially problematic in winter months, when students have boots to lace up and snowpants and winter coats to fasten.

Several kindergarten teachers, who said students’ missing skills come from societal changes and the presence of different products on the market, said they try not to take up precious class time with lessons on laces and zippers. But some have started offering students tips on how to learn and practice at home, and they sometimes have students spend free class time honing their tying and zipping skills.

Recently, some of Kim Lash’s kindergarten students spent free time working on a tying activity.

“I do have a large number of kids, even at this point in the year, that cannot tie their own shoes,” said Lash, a teacher at Wisconsin Lutheran Lower School, 2920 Bate St., Racine. “A third of my class still has trouble with zippers.”

Kids are tying shoes and zipping zippers at about the same rate at St. Lucy Parish School, 3035 Drexel Ave. Students in Jean Robles’ kindergarten class are good at zipping coats, but only seven of 31 can tie shoes, a proportion that has gone down over time.

“I do a lot of shoe-tying,” Robles said, explaining students developing fine motor skills can make shoe-tying difficult. “We figure they should (know how) by second grade.”

Other schools like Wisconsin Lutheran push the skill in kindergarten but run into difficulties in part because of the products available. Popular Velcro, slip-on and buckle shoes prevent children from having an opportunity to tie a shoe, Lash said.

Another obstacle is time. Parents have less and less of it to teach their children skills such as shoe-tying and coat-zipping, Lash said, and Gifford Elementary School kindergarten teacher Kathy Hasenstein agreed.

“A lot of it is the parent is trying to get out the door in the morning and get to work on time so it’s just easier to put things on the child than have the child learn it,” Hasenstein said. So she encourages parents to make time when they are not stressed and rushing to get somewhere.

Hasenstein also suggests children practice by putting their coat on a teddy bear and zipping it repeatedly. For tying shoes, Lash recommends students practice during commercial breaks of their favorite TV show.

“Then they’re getting little bitty bursts of practice and getting the reward of the show being on,” she said.

If the practice doesn’t work or there just isn’t time, Lash sends notes home to parents telling them to make sure their child can handle whatever they wear. Hasenstein asks parents buy a type of shoe the child can put on by themselves.

That’s why Hasenstein’s student Amelia Wiesner was wearing buckle shoes recently.

Amelia, 5, said she doesn’t know how to tie shoes and doesn’t practice. “I just don’t want to,” she said.

But some other kindergartners at Gifford, 8332 Northwestern Ave., Caledonia, are experts. Gia Rendon, 5, said she’s been tying her own shoes for a year. Her classmate Bradley Morrison said he has, too.

As Bradley, 5, played with big, yellow blocks in class one recent afternoon, he noticed his shoes were untied, the laces flopping on the ground. He immediately dropped to one knee and got to work tying, securing the laces on his third try.

At the end of the day, Bradley’s coat-zipping went much the same way as he stood by his locker. Some of his red winter-coat fabric caught in the zipper on the first try, but he got it after that.

Around Bradley, other kindergartners tried to do the same, and also zipped snow pants and put on the boots, hats, scarves and gloves that came tumbling out of their lockers.

“Doesn’t it just look like the closet exploded?” Hasenstein said. “At the end of the day, it does take longer to get them ready and to the bus. I really praise the kids who can do it all. If a child is really struggling I say, ’Oh. You’ve got your snowpant leg inside out.’ Instead of doing it, I tell them they have to pull it out so they can do it next time.”

And if students can’t, Hasenstein said, she’ll keep telling them and having them practice during free time, with or without parents’ help.

“If it’s a matter of either (parents) spend 10 minutes helping them tie shoes or 10 minutes reading a story to them,” she said, “I’d rather they read the story.”