How to teach your child to tell time? Tips & Tricks

Reading time can be more complex than you think. Even as adults, we sometimes make mistakes or get confused and might have to blink twice for our brain to click and realize what time it is.

If you're one of those people who can read the time easily any time of the day, wait till you start teaching your child to tell time, because trust us, it will take you t-i-m-e! (a lot of it).

You can start teaching your child to tell the time when they're about 6 or 7 years old because this is when they will already know basic counting, and by 8 or 9, your child might be able to tell time quickly.

Teaching children to tell time

Before teaching your child to tell time, start with the basics. Introduce time as a concept to your child and make them understand the passage of time. Your child needs to know that time is divided into weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Many words in our vocabulary represent time like morning, noon, evening, night, sunrise, sunset, yesterday, tomorrow, and so on.

Start with your child's routine

Discuss their daily routine to help your child understand the concept of time better. The best way to do this is to take a series of cards and write down your child's daily activities like breakfast, school time, naptime, playtime, lunch, dinner, and such. 

Ask your child to keep the cards in order of every activity and segregate the day into morning, noon, evening, and night.

The basics

Before they can start telling time, they need to master counting to 60. Once they are comfortable with getting to 60, add a layer to it, go in fives, like 5, 10, 15, 20, and so on.

Use a toy or DIY clock 

The best way to teach your child to tell time with an analog clock is to hand them one. You can either give them a toy clock or make one at home. Take a paper plate and draw or put on number stickers on it. Another fun way is to take a hula-hoop outside and use a piece of chalk to draw the numbers with the hour and minute hand for your child to understand.

Making teaching anything, let alone time, in a fun and playful way can be more effective and easy to understand for your child.

Hands and numbers 

Explain the hour and minute hands' role on the clock to your child, like when the hour hand is on a number; it's that-o'clock. 

Teach them to read time by the hour hand first, then a half-hour, and once they master it, teach them to read the minute hand and then demonstrate how to read the hour and minute hands together.

Tell them about the dual meaning of the numbers. The numbers represent the hour and how many minutes have passed if the minute hand is on 1, then it means 5 minutes, and 2 represents 10 minutes, and so on.

Keep in mind: Introducing everything at once can be overwhelming, and they can get confused. 

Once your child becomes proficient in counting by fives, teach them how they can count by fives around the clock to know how many minutes it is past the hour. Limit it to the 30 minutes past the hour at first; go past the 30 minutes like 3:35, 3:40, 3:45, and so on. 

Also, be wary of the 50 and 55-minute indicators. They are tricky for children as the hour hand also moves close to the next digit. At first glance, 3:55 can be mistaken for 4:55, for example. Explain how the hour hand moves significantly slower from one number to the next.

Teaching your child to tell time will take, well, time! So let your child have their space and time to tell, well, time. Time-telling is a valuable life skill, so take any opportunity throughout the day to use the clock naturally, and soon your child will become better at reading time. 

Head on over to byjuslearning.com to learn more about our Active Learning approach to Math, Language, and Reading for children between Pre-K and Grade 3.