Do young people today have difficulty telling the time on analogue clocks?

[Draconis]

I've heard this from a couple of people now and wondered how much truth there is in it

Mine have learned it as part of maths lessons, and can work it out if they really try/concentrate, but they don't really experience analogue clocks enough for it to be automatic.

Kind of similar to roman numerals - it's on the curriculum but it's forgotten immediately.

DH teaches 11 to 18 and he says 'yes, the struggle big time'

I struggled at school with telling the time. But I am dyslexic, and I did get there eventually. Maybe because I really struggled I’ve really helped my kids with telling the time. They both have wall clocks and watches and I’ll ask them to tell me the time as practice. They are 6 and 8.

This is the very reason that my daughter and i bought 2 large faced analogue clocks with numbers for their house. Those are the clocks we always refer to when talking to her DC, 5 and 8, about the time - they can tell the time on an analogue clock very well. Children need to get used to seeing clocks - how on earth will they cope with turning screws clockwise or anti-clockwise otherwise!

Bizarrely this is widespread!
Both my children (6th form and undergraduate) understand analogue -indeed, both wear a watch -but say many of their contemporaries can’t understand anything but digital 🤷‍♀️ and hardly anyone wears a ‘normal’ watch.

Yes. There are fewer and fewer analogue clocks in public and private life. Maths is base 10 not base 12 as it was.

My sister is 21 and absolutely struggles, however she has also recently been diagnosed with dyslexia.

Mine is 8 and can tell the time using analogue and digital.

I don’t think this is the norm, however.

Yes. I am a secondary school teacher. During the exam season last year we realised that we needed to replace the big analogue clocks in the exam hall with digital ones as so many pupils could not read analogue faces and timings are crucial for most papers. The problem is compounded by the fact that all watches are now banned from exams by the JCQ so all students are reliant on the wall clocks.

One of the simplest but most effective changes we made for our students entitled to pupil premium is to make sure we have large digital clocks in the exam hall.

My eldest (15) can't tell the time on an analogue clock, but he struggles with things like that in general anyway. My youngest (9) absolutely can. But this thread has made me realise that I don't have a single analogue clock in my house!!!! We all have fit bits / smart watches / mobile phones to tell the time. My alarm clock is digital, as are the clocks in the car.

We have a clock in our kitchen that the kids have always used to see how much time they have left before leaving for school and so on.
My friend has one in the bathroom to stop her teenagers spending hours in there.
I didn't think many people just wouldn't have one in their house.

Yes, our foster daughter is in her late twenties now. She got good GCSEs including a B in maths and has a professional job, but can't tell the time on anything other than digital.

I had to teach 16 year-olds to tell the time on an analogue clock because their GCSE exam hall only has that. They are not allowed to wear watches into the exam, so the only way they can tell how much time is left depends on them being able to read the time from the clock in the exam hall.

I have a DD16 and DS11. They can both tell the time on a proper clock.

If it was a life skill these days then they’d probably know it better. As more and more clocks become digital, then the skill is used less and less.

Except in exam rooms it seems. 😂

I am truly astounded, as I didn't realise youngsters could no longer tell the time from a clock face before I saw this thread. I learned to tell the time well before I started school, when I was about three years old.

In 1963, almost everyone could tell the time by the time they started school. We were also expected to be capable of tying our own shoelaces, doing up shirt buttons and tying a school tie by the age of five (and we made our own way to school, unaccompanied by adults, from the age of seven).

Irrelevant I know, but I also learned how to knit and sew from age five. By the end of junior school, I could sew my own clothes. We didn't have a sewing machine at school so we hand sewed everything.

Things have changed so much in my lifetime!

One of mine picked it up really easily and one struggled (dyslexic). We deliberately put analogue clocks in prominent positions in our living and dining rooms when they were little and had a tell the time snap
card game with analogue, digital and 24 hour faces on. Neither had ever worn a watch regularly, they both use their phones to tell the time.

Really? Comes down to yet another thing parents aren't bothering to teach their kids, I taught both of mine before they started school (they weren't allowed the coveted Mickey Mouse watch until they could!)

Lots of kids can't read analogue clocks.

I think this has made them poor judges of what "10 minutes" or "half an hour" feels like. On an analogue clock they can see the hands physically moving but on a digital clock, one number is much like another.

my (otherwise very able) 15 year old does this!
He just cant quite get to grips with analogue time at all. Depsite us teaching him when he was little, and doing it in school. He just doesnt use it in every day life so really struggles with it!

When skills aren't needed any more, they slowly fade out.

My DS bought himself an analogue watch with money he got for his 18th. He also has 2 of those old fashioned analogue alarm clocks with the bells on top as he wouldn't wake up to any other type of alarm. So ge definitely knows how to tell the time on an analogue clock.

I also teach MFL and always find I'm teaching telling the time in English and French!

Depend on the kids I suppose. My kids are teens and learnt to tell the time at 5/6 years of age. My friends grandson is only 4 and he can tell the time.

I was a CM for years and made sure i had an analouge click in the playroom.

we used to have play clocks, but i found that most ofmy older after schoolies coukdnt tell the time on them.

Many homes don't have an analogue clock in the house at all and children don't have analogue watches.