When should a child be able to tell the time?

[taylorsmummy2004]

I am currently teaching my 4yr old DD to tell the time before she starts school this year, how far should i go??

I think there's a lot less incentive for children to learn to tell the time on an analogue clock than there was say 40 years ago, when I learned. I remember getting a watch when I was 5 and working it out on with my mum's help on one longish car journey. My brother learned at 3 from my grandma's many ill-set timepieces.

We actually only have one analogue clock in our house, I've realised, and that has Roman numerals on it (a small carriage clock in our dining room). Children can tell the time and grasp the concept of hours from digital clocks with so little effort now - and we have digital clocks on everything, from the oven to the bedside radio to the computer to the TV/DVD etc. So there's very little practical reason for children to want to learn to read an analogue clock, unless they just happen to be the sort of children who like that sort of thing - as some are.

But if they're interested, teach them whenever you and they want to learn.

When DD1 was four she was waking up very early every morning, so we bought her a clock and taught her 7 o'clock, and she wasn't allowed out of her bedroom until that time in the morning. It more or less worked. She is now five and a half and I'm just beginning to teach her how to tell the time properly.

Telling the time is like potty training - you can start young and it tales 3 years or you can leave it til they can understand the concepts and it takes a week!

Or you can start young and they get it in a couple of days.

My DD has just complete her second year of école maternelle, and the teacher told us at the beginning of the year, ie last September, that most children in the class would grasp the concept of time during the year. It certainly was true of DD: concepts such as yesterday, last week, last year, tomorrow, next week, this afternoon etc etc have all become real this year.

I'm not sure that learning to read a clock has any point to it before the concept of time is mastered. It's a bit like counting to a 100 - is there any real point in teaching a child to do this when they cannot understand the concept of numbers? Surely it is better to wait and to teach the concept of numbers and to work on their meaning within a restricted framework (counting to ten forwards and backwards, basic adding and subtracting etc) than learning to parrot numbers.

DS1 could properly tell the time toward the end of reception (he's one of the oldest) and I think he was the only one in the class who could.

I think 4 is a bit young to learn it really.

"Or you can start young and they get it in a couple of days. "

Yes, but to what end exactly?

Understanding the concept of time - this takes me back to my own primary teacher who used to get us to sit in silence with eyes closed and put up our hand when we thought a minute / 2 minutes etc had passed. Small prize for the winner. Looking back, probably more an exercise in having some peace!
Same teacher also got us to put up our hand when we thought we had heard a pin drop. She really did stand there with a pin!

oh yes - interesting that about concept of time - DS1 seemed to grasp that much later than DS2 did.

I think DS1 could possibly have learned to "read" the time earlier - but I don't think it would have meant anything to him.

Whereas DS2 gets time - hence I guess being able to tell the time earlier.

I think 4 is far too young.

I think they start teaching it in Y1 or Y2 ... some children find it very difficult even then. I think my two both grasped digital at around 7yrs, analogue at 8/9 years. Yes, that long

DS1's teacher just after Christmas (so part way thorugh YR3) said he needed to "work" a bit on his telling the time - but that he wasn't behind at all, just needed a little more help at home with it.

Mine learned very early to recognize particular times - 7.30 Daddy coming home, 4.30 TV time, 6.00 supper time - but they had no concept of time at all - it was just like pictures. And they couldn't (I remember this drove me to distraction) extrapolate the 7.30 to half past anything else!

hmc - referring to telling the time - the benefit with my dd1 understanding when 7am was so that she would stay in her bedroom until them, and not wake everyone up at a ridiculous hour.

If a child is developmentally ready for something, and the parent willing to teach, then whyever not?

My 6yo DS is otherwise a maths whizz but continues not to quite 'get' telling the time.

But belgo, that's not 'telling the time" that's knowing that mummy will go ballistic if I go out of my room before the picture on the clock is a particular shape. Just like mine knowing what time daddy was coming home.

Telling the time is being able to say what the time will be in 20 minutes, or how long is it until 9.35. That takes time.

yes for some children that takes time to learn, for other children, they may learn it very quickly. (states obvious)

[bows to belgo's 4 year old, and prepares to whip her own rcalcitrant clock phobic 8 year old into shape before next term]

Seriously, I do think it's a very hard thing to learn - and one of those things that it's not worth trying until they are develpmentally ready. that'w why I used the potty training analogy.

Your potty training analogy is interesting because many children are ready from 16/18/20 months, and it's not necessarily a hard thing to learn.

Telling the time is different, my dh still struggles despite being quite clever.

Time Telling and the National Curriculum

According to the government?s numeracy strategy guidelines, children should be able to reach these milestones:

• Reception class children should be beginning to read the time to the hour
• Children in Year 1 (age 5-6) should be able to read the time to the hour or the half hour on analogue clocks
• Year 2 children (age 6-7) should be able to read the time to the hour, half hour or quarter hour on analogue clocks

I do disagree a little that they can't "tell the time" until they can recognise times such as 9.35. As they can understand the concept of time and be able to say "nearly 1/4 past" or "just after 1/4 to" without knowing the nitty gritty of it all.

Primary framework guidelines from the DSCF website

Foundation (reception) : Use everyday language related to time; order and sequence familiar events and measure short periods of time

YR1: Use vocabulary related to time; order days of the week and months; read the time to the hour and half hour

YR2: Use units of time (seconds, minutes, hours, days) and know the relationships between them; read the time to the quarter hour; identify time intervals, including those that cross the hour

YR3: Read the time on a 12-hour digital clock and to the nearest 5 minutes on an analogue clock; calculate time intervals and find start or end times for a given time interval

YR4: Read time to the nearest minute; use am, pm and 12-hour clock notation; choose units of time to measure time intervals; calculate time intervals from clocks and timetables

YR5: Read timetables and time using 24-hour clock notation; use a calendar to calculate time intervals

So basically a lot of adults fall into the YR3 framework -as I know lots of people that struggle to use timetables to calculate time intervals

Well, if you're me, aged about .... 12. . Just didn't see the need until then...

I remember one of the teachers at the infant school my two went to saying that most children learned to tell the time either at about 4, or not until they were 7-8 -this was certainly true for my two - DS picked it up at 4, DD didn't really get it till the end of Year 3 - they've since proved to be pretty much of equal intelligence in other ways.

I certainly think it doesn't hinder them in any way not being able to tell the time until aged 7 / 8