Teaching classroom routines can feel overwhelming—for us and our students. Unpacking backpacks.Bathroom routines.Handwashing.Cleaning up.Getting materials. These aren’t hard because they’re complicated concepts. They’re hard because they involve many small steps strung together. And for students with autism and other special needs, that can be a lot to hold at once. That’s where backward chaining comes in. What is Backward Chaining? Backward chaining is a teaching strategy where the adult completes most of the steps in a task and teaches the very last step first. Once the student masters that final step, you move backward—adding one step at a time—until the student can complete the entire routine independently. The key idea is simple but powerful: Every practice ends with success. Why