Teaching Kids to Tell Time

It Takes More Than a Minute

Young children aren't born with a sense of time. If they were, I am quite sure that parents would quickly distort it with the many times we say "just a minute" when actually we need more than one minute. Learning to tell time is an important but often challenging skill. Why? There are so many concepts and skills involved.

Learning to tell time involves recognizing numbers, counting up to sixty by ones, counting by fives, understanding fractions such as one-half hour, quarter after and so on, conceptualizing the big hand and the little hand and then we throw in analog and digital clocks. No wonder it is such a challenge.

Never fear. You can teach it. They can learn it. The biggest mistakes made in teaching telling time are beginning before the child has the developmental skills to be successful or trying to teach too much at once.

How do you know when your child is ready? Ages will vary greatly so look for skills. If your child can recognize numbers 1-12, then you can begin working on hours. Point out the hours on both digital and analog clocks. Focus on only the hours for a while until your child is comfortable.

Here's the rub with analog clocks. Children often get the big hand and the little hand confused. An hour is longer and a minute is shorter, so doesn't it make sense that the minute hand would be shorter? Also, they start by learning hours and the minute hand is dominant to their eye and naturally drawn to the number it is pointing to. This confusion is completely normal.

Here's a way to help. Create your own clock with a paper plate, light colored hands and a brad and use stickers and markers for the numbers. Write the words hour and minute on the hands. Explain that hour is a short word. Say it together to "feel" how short it is. Minute is a longer word. Say it together to "feel" how it is longer. This will really help visual learners and if they use this for a while they will be able to "picture" the words on other analog clocks as well. Look at real clocks, both analog and digital, and focus only on the hour until they can do this. If you use work sheets, again, don't move on too quickly.