Although I am happy with the progress the boys are making at school I do try to help them along at home too. I make a conscious effort to incorporate learning in our daily lives from cookery skills to geography and everything in between. I use a mix of household items and specifically designed educational resources and games such as the Easyread Clock which is a great resource if you are wondering how to teach a child to tell time.
Having gone through the time telling process twice now with my sons I can honestly say that teaching a child to tell the time can be quite difficult and sometimes a bit exasperating, however it is without a doubt easier than teaching them to read!
Tiddler “C-A-T”
Me “yes, excellent”
Tiddler “Dog C-A-T is dog”
Give me strength
When our first son was learning to tell the time we used a jigsaw game at home where you had to match the time to picture of an activity such as going to bed, this worked well to a degree but if I’m honest he simply memorised the answers and could only tell certain times for a while.
With the tiddler, however, we have been using the EasyRead Time Teacher clock and it is brilliant. I honestly wish we had bought one years ago and can highly recommend it as a tool if you want to figure out how to teach a child to tell time.
How does the Easyread Clock work?
The Easyread clock is an actual working wall clock that can be hung in any room of the house and can be used at any point, with or without adult supervision. The clock face has the usual numbers round the edge and the normal 3 hands, hours, minutes and seconds, but it also has extras which aid the teaching of the phrases.
One side is red and one side is blue, this indicates to the child if the minute hand is on blue the time is past and if it is red the time is to.
Above the usual numbers you expect to find are the numbers 1-30 and then 19-1 indicating the exact number of minutes past or to the hour it is with the numbers 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 in bold to make it even clearer.
Then once the child has got to grips with that there is also an extra set of markers to indicate the o’clock, 1/4 past and 1/4 to and 1/2 past mark as well.
The Easyread clock is unbelievably easy to use and helps the children to verbalise their answer with confidence as they can see that if the minute hand is on 3, it is also 15 minutes past the hour and 1/4 past the hour.
We have been using the Easyread clock with both boys, although the big-un can already tell the time and they have both loved it. They even argued over whose bedroom it would go in (typical brothers).
How to teach a child to tell time
5 top tips for using the Easyread clock
This clock is a stand alone piece of equipment that can be used on a daily basis to hone in on time telling skills but it can also be used off the wall in a few ways
- Ask the child to tell the time
- Ask the child a series of questions “what is another way of saying 30 minutes past?” “how many minutes past would it be at 1/4 past?”
- Ask the child to use little stickers to mark off certain times. Using different coloured stickers for each hand.
- Get the child to ask you questions whilst they check your answers, kids love to play the teacher.
- Set the child a timed activity – “colour in for 7 minutes” and then ask them to check the time themselves.
These activities work great and really promote Independence as well as time telling skills. I would highly recommend this clock for pre-school and key stage 1 children. They also have Easyread time Teacher watches available for those that are a little older too.
If you would like to order one of these Easyread clocks then we have a special 10% Easyread Time Teacher discount code available that can be used on all their products. All you have to do is use this link and then enter the code aff10 for a 10% discount.
We have also reviewed the Easy Read watch which is a great gift for children aged 4 and over.
(We were sent this clock to review. All opinions are my own).