To expect a 15yo NT child to be able to tell the time?

[clary]

Just that really. Teenager I was talking to today got out phone to see what the time was - I pointed out a nearby clock - "I can't read that" by which he meant not that he needed glasses, but that he didn't know how to tell the time on an analogue clock.

I was really shocked - is this usual? Are we, thanks to mobile phones and their ubiquity, moving to a time when young people will only understand a digital clock? And does that in fact matter?

[rebelfor]

My daughter could tell the time from a clock with no numbers (just a 'line' where the numbers should be) when she was 6 years old.

I, relatively bright, still struggle now sometimes if the numbers aren't marked out, especially the 4 and 8. Don't know why though.

[ConkerTime]

I had this with my dyslexic child. He struggled learning to tell the time at the allotted moment in schooling and took to reading the time digitally from the oven and central heating timer (this was long before he got a phone!)

[ConkerTime]

It's a nature meets digital environment issue in his case. Born prior to the 70s he would have had to use analogue eventually through real world exposure.

[Mrsjayy]

It is true they live in the digital age even morning telly has digital time now, my last mobile had a clock face icon and I had that instead but new phone doesn't have it

[ConkerTime]

His secondary maths teachers wouldn't notice this as he can use analogue time now, just not as instinctively as I would expect!

[Ohmygrood]

My dyspraxic ds struggled with the analogue clocks in his high school and found it very difficult to be in the right place at the right time. I've just bought him a cheap digital watch (it's very 1970's) and he loves it and won't take it off. I feel awful now that I hadn't bought him one before!

[whois]

I'm dyslexic. I struggled with normal clocks - I knoe how it works, and I can work it out now but it takes me a while. I can't just glance at a clock face and know the time.

I don't see it as a huge problem - I wear a digital watch and carry a phone with me.

[Mrsjayy]

I bought dyspraxic dd an ice watch not even thinking she said urm mum its very nice but.... her sister wears it now

[Ohmygrood]

Yes I had bought my ds an analogue watch a couple of years ago which he has never worn! I just thought that he kept forgetting to put it on.

[Ohmygrood]

It was an ice watch that I bought my ds also. He's far happier with the digital watch for under a tenner!

[ButtfaceMiscreant]

I've found this discussion really interesting (more so than Abadas on CBeebies anyway!)

I have one question though. Those of you who can only read digital displays, or know someone who can only do this, do you also struggle with 24hour/military time?

[HappyAmbler]

Buttface yes! My dh (mentioned up thread) has his digital watch set to 12 hour mode with am and pm. I find it a bit odd that he has a technical job in computing but struggles with this simple concept. Like others, he can tell the time on an analogue clock but he has to concentrate on working it out - can't just glance. I think it shows that our brains are just wired differently!

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

My DS (who is dyspraxic) has always found telling the time fairly straightforward, because we never really had to tach him I think we've slacked a bit with his younger sister (8) who is struggling a bit with it. We've just bought this Tell the Time Snap and it's really helping, it has about 10 different times shown as digital, analogue (more than one clock face), 24 hour and written word. It's very useful for re-inforcing the conversions between analogue, digital, 24 hour and the way we speak.

[DertieBertie]

I'm quite severely dyspraxic and wasn't diagnosed until I left school and was at university. I was academic, but would go to great lengths to avoid showing I had difficulties with certain things (like telling the time on an analogue clock) and your comment would have made me feel really bad. I still struggle on clocks that don't have all the numbers on the face. Don't jump to conclusions about people being NT! You don't know!

[wigglybeezer]

I think the problem is that the whole class works on telling the time for a couple of years at primary school and then move on to other things when the majority of the children have got the hang of it. The couple of children who haven't mastered it never get a chance to go over it until they do unless their parents notice and work on it at home, the number of digital devices masks how many don't have this skill.

The same goes for other skills like the months of the year and alphabetical order ( my older two boys both struggle with all these skills ).

[ConkerTime]

Yes wiggly, primary school was a long list of mistimed opportunities for my son! It's not acceptable for the kids whose parents can't pick up the slack. Possibly that's what happened with the TOWIE lad mentioned above.

[ConkerTime]

In fact I remember DS being ridiculed by younger kids in his class because (in a composite class) he was not able to tell the time. As his eyes filled with tears the teacher told him to stop being so silly as he was a Year X . All reported to me by his friend as of course he didn't want to share that particular humiliation.

Can you tell it still grates! And yet the same teacher never commented that he needed either extra practice or the accommodation of a digital watch.

[MsAspreyDiamonds]

Telling the time took a while to learn but I mastered it by the age of 9/10.

I am left handed, not naturally gifted in mental arithmatic but can do fractions/ equations quite well. I am clumsy but has settled with age, I still can't walk straight! I couldn't tie my laces ordo up my buttons until I was about 10 but I have a good
rhythm & can follow a tune well.

[LegsOfSteel]

I've been a parent helper in school and realised that telling the time is actually quite a difficult thing to learn. I think the way they teach it I n the school doesn't always help.
I started teaching DD a slightly different way to the teacher and once she got over the "but Mrs Teacher" says that's not right" and put the two together she understood it.
I can see it is quite possible to get left behind with this.

[thinkingaboutthistoomuch]

telling time can be difficult! I think it is difficult for some children to grasp why we tell time in two different ways i.e. analogue and digitally. 2:45, for example may be misread as quarter to two, not three.

My experience is that a child with coordination difficulties may find the analogue clock challenging. Maybe something to do with the way the brain works? As a grown up, it may be possible to just settle on a digital clock and by then you will probably have a feel for what time of the day it is anyway.

Children have to get through school first and cope with maths problem questions which require them to move time forward and backwards using both 'types' of time. I can see how it would be easy to get left behind at age 8/9.

[duchesse]

Yes I would. Mind you, there are many skills that we took for granted when we were children that young people these days can't or won't do. Remember phone numbers of example. My highly bright 21 yo tells me pityingly that no-one needs to remember phone numbers any more. He's doing an Msc n engineering and barely knows his own home phone number. I despair.

[speedbird17]

Not the usual sort of thing I'd admit, but I can't just look at a clock and 'tell the time' I have to think about it and sort of go 'right so that's quarter to, next one so it's 10 to and the other one that's 12, 11 ok so it's 10 to 11' working backwards is much easier for me.

I also struggle with left and right, if someone asks which way it is now in the car my automatic response is left...

Never had any formal issue diagnosed and have always been a high achiever. Got good A levels and a decent degree in Modern Languages. At 25 now I just let it go!!

[unlucky83]

My DD1 struggled - still at 13 isn't comfortable. Problem I think is that it is obvious because we all have digital clocks as well...
I thought she'd mastered it at primary school - didn't realise she still couldn't use an analogue clock until she was 11-12!
Never thought about the big hand issue (play clocks we had were the same thickness just different lengths -the big hand is the minute hand!)
I found what her problem was is that the way she was taught early on wasn't right - the big hand points to 12, little hand points to 3 -its 3 o'clock. The big hand points to 6 and the little hand to 3 its half past three - but that isn't true!!!
The little hand is actually half way between 3 and 4 when its half past 3 not actually 'pointing to 3'...so where the minute hand is important but the hour hand moves too- doesn't spring from one hour to the next!
I remember explaining that both hands move together, the minute hand goes round faster than the hour hand - but the hour hand gradually moves between the hours - so the hour hand is just after 3 at quarter past, in the middle at half past and closer to 4 than 3 at a quarter to 4...
I don't know if that makes sense or not ..struggling to explain it but I got what confused her...

[unlucky83]

isn't obvious - not is !