How to teach telling the time?

[claw2]

Ds has no concept of telling the time. He knows there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day etc, however they are just numbers to ds. He just cannot get how to tell the time.

We have a telling the time clock, which breaks it down into sections and literally tells you what the time is.

Ds has been given test revision sheets, for a math test on Tuesday, 6 in total! and told to revise for the test.

Part of the sheets is converting am/pm to 24 hour and vice versa and writing the time in words. I have explained to just add or subtract 12 for the answers, however ds is refusing to do this as he doesn't understand why he needs to do this.

We watched a kid friendly video, I have drawn diagrams, charts etc, but ds just doesn't 'get it'.

Any suggestion on how to teach telling the time?

or how to get ds past the not understanding the time and just to focus on it as numbers and a maths problem ie add 12 etc?

Ds really wanted to do the sheets and sat with me for ages and really wanted to understand, he just couldn't. Later in the evening he then ended up sobbing, due to the pressure of a test and feeling he is 'stupid' and 'dumb'.

Sorry Star you don't have to answer that, I am just having a doubting myself moment!

Claw I really didn't meet him for long enough to say but let me ask you this. Did MY ds come across as 'typically autistic'?

There ain't no such thing imho!

That's true Star! I realise it was a silly question, as soon as I asked, more out of frustration!

Star - it is very true that 'there ain't no such thing' but having seen an earlier video, then, yes, I could see straight away. Maybe you would with DS1. But then again, maybe not because he is different iykwim

We have the Simpson episode unit of time

Ah yes, but you keep saw ds in a very different context to Claw who saw a compliant happily decorating cakes little lad, who asked questions but sat pretty still and did as he was told.

Having said that, Claw ensured the environment for him was perfect. He wasn't being asked to sing and dance in front of an audience - lol.

I had a lovely discussion with Claw's ds about a topic he was interested in and can only report a delightful, communicative, appreciative and interesting young boy.

He looked absolutely fine to me, and so he should in an environment he is comfortable in, with freedom to leave to room at whim, discussing his favourite things and under the protection of someone he trusts.

I LOVE 'half-Spongebobs'!

Thanks Polter, I have added a watch to this thread and I think I will start by going right back to the very basics, then work my way through suggestions on here, a process of elimination!

Ds can count to 60, he knows his 5 times tables, that's a start at least!

He knows to say that there are 60 seconds in a minute, he knows 60 minutes in an hour. I have explained what the little hand and big hand do, but he hasn't grasped that yet.

He doesn't know how long a minute or an hour takes to pass, so at the moment, minute and hour are just words.

Do you really need to know how long these take to pass to tell the time or should I treat time passing and telling time as separate things?

Last week ds set his egg timer for 60 minutes, starting at 8am on the dot. tick tick tick......

He wanted to know if 60 minutes really DID take us to 9am.

Fine tick tick.

It worked, thank goodness.

Then he decided he has to do it for every hour, marking off each one, to check that there were 24 hours in the day.

tick tick tick bloody tick.

He gave up at 3 Oclock when I bribed him with the ipad.

It sounds to me as if you may need to go back to basics and work on time as a concept.

Try writing on flash cards a series of units of time: from 'a second' to 'a century', with hour, day, week, fortnight and year in between. Ask him to put them in order in a long line from the shortest time to the longest time. You could also talk about what happens over the course of a year, month, decade etc.

Once he can reliably sequence these, revisit the idea of minutes, hours and seconds and reintroduce the clock face.

Tether, yes ds doesn't know what order months of the year are in. He struggles with naming days of the week in order too. So sequencing is a difficult for him.

Me cooking and a timer is ok, although he would lose interest and leave the kitchen while in the oven, food and being around food isn't a big incentive for him, even cakes! Competitions or timing how long it takes for him to do things is a big no, he will panic and want it switched off.

polter @ your ds!

After dinner, I am going to see if ds can apply the 12 hour add/subtract thing on the sheet, he could do it to make the monkey blow up the robot online!

Maybe I can pretend to be a monkey when he gets it right although he probably wouldn't find that funny!

Thanks everyone for your advice and suggestions, much appreciated.

Oh well he refused point blank to do the time sheet, however he did move onto the other sheets, which is a big improvement from yesterday.

He has just sat and drawn shapes with a ruler to the size written on the sheet and drawn right angle triangles, a grid using co-ordinates ie numbers equal letters to spell out words, totally independently.

Then told me he knows square roots and given me examples (apparently the older boys in the school taxi taught him!)

He couldn't name months of the year and if i ask him o'clocks its always 12 oclock, regardless of where the hour hand is pointing. If I move the minute hand to 1 and then ask what the time is, its then 1 oclock.

I explained minute, hour, second hands again. We sat and counted to 60 and he could tell me there are 60 seconds in a minute, we then watched the second hand go around the clock and counted to 60 and I asked him how long it took, he couldn't tell me!

I think you could be right Polter, its kind of 'all there' so to speak, its just a bit jumbled up at present. Im sure we will get there in the end, just not before Tuesday.

What happens if you take the minute hand off the clock, and just have an hour hand for a while? Then put it back on when he's got the hang of it? It won't be by Tuesday tho.

If I remove all hands except the hour hand, ds can roll off very easily, its 1 oclock, 2 oclock etc, etc.

The minute I introduce the minute hand, he gets confused for example when the minute hand is on 1 and hour hand on 3, its 'oh its one hour past' or 'oh I get it when it goes on 1, that means one hour has past, when it goes on 2 that means 2 hours has passed'

Maybe I will have more luck, getting rid of the telling time clock and use a usual one.

So he has oclocks pretty well established when minute hand is removed. It seems to be the 'past' bit that is throwing him. Minute hand he thinks is telling you how many hours have 'past'.

Maybe this isn't so complicated, he just needs to change that to how many minutes have past!

Yay I cant believe it, he has got it!!!

Took me a while to understand his thinking, but Polter was right, whoosh he just got it, literally from out of nowhere!

We have played 'whats the time Mr Wolf' with me holding the clock, with only hour hand, him guessing and me jumping around to see if his guess is right. Then putting the minute hand back on and playing again with him guessing oclock, quarter past/to and half past.

Then hey presto, he had it!

He cannot tell time on a normal clock, but on the telling time clock, he has got it!!