How to teach telling time

Start with o'clock, then half past, then quarter past and quarter to, and finally five-minute intervals. Practise both reading a clock and drawing the hands at each stage. Building up in this order keeps each new step small and manageable.

Children usually start telling time in Kindergarten with o'clock and half past, and reach five-minute intervals by around Grade 3. Reading an analog clock accurately takes time because it uses two hands and a face marked in both hours and minutes.

The short hand shows the hour and the long hand shows the minutes. The hour hand moves slowly and points near the hour number, while the minute hand sweeps right around the face in an hour. Colour-coding the two hands helps children keep them apart.

Because the hour hand sits just before or just after the hour number as the minute hand approaches 12. At 6:55 the hour hand is nearly on 7, so the child reads 7 o'clock. Teach that the hour is the number the short hand has passed, not the nearest one.

Teach analog first. Digital clocks simply display the numbers, but analog reading builds the underlying sense of the hour and minute hands, of time passing round the face, and of fractions of an hour like quarter past. Once analog is secure, digital and the link between them follow easily.

Quarter past is 15 minutes after the hour, with the minute hand on the 3 on the right of the clock. Quarter to is 15 minutes before the next hour, with the minute hand on the 9 on the left. Children often confuse the two, so link each to the side of the face.

Once reading a clock is secure, children move on to elapsed time, working out how long something lasts, and later to the 24-hour clock. Both build on confident clock reading, so it is worth making telling the time fluent first.