This article discusses ways to help a young child learn to tell time.

Young children learn about time naturally, as they become aware that different things happen at different parts of the day, week and year. You help teach the idea of time when you talk to child about what will happen in the morning, or tomorrow, or in the summer, or the next birthday. Night and day may be the easiest ideas of time for a very young child, around two years old. You can reinforce these concepts simply, by describing to the child night, when it gets dark and you read a story and sleep; day, when it is light and you play.

Understanding clock time and reading clocks are more complicated skills than a very young child can manage. To teach telling time, start when your child shows he is aware of more basic ideas. He will use words like ‘later’ or ‘at lunch’ and ‘when’. This readiness varies, but is about three years old for many children. To help the child learn, name the specific time for an activity. Instead of ‘breakfast in the morning’, say ‘at seven thirty when we eat breakfast’. Say ‘twelve o’clock’ instead of ‘noon’; ‘after six’ instead of ‘later today’. He will then begin to associate numbers with time, which he must do before understanding what numbers on a clock really mean.

One very natural way for children who are ready to learn to read clocks is by television show schedules. Again, discuss time with your child using numbers. Show her the numbers on the clock. Digital clocks can be the easiest way to start because they are so common in most homes on televisions, ovens, radios, etc. Talk about the time a show will start and end. When the show comes on, look at the clock together and point out where the hour number is and how the minutes are a different number. Do the same thing when the show ends. Talk about when it will come on again. It can be surprising how quickly a child recognizes that their favorite show will start soon by reading the clock. Once she shows this understanding, you can look at the clock with her for other predictable activities. Name the time to go to work, or get a haircut, or take a bath and then use a clock to check.

A child needs to understand how to count to successfully read a clock to measure time. If he knows that six is less than seven, or comes before nine, then he can use a clock to see if the time is too early, late, or just right. Talk with him about what happens after twelve o’clock, too – the hour changes to one instead of thirteen. At this point he is also ready to learn about minutes, and how the hour changes after fifty-nine minutes. You can play a What If game to help teach the idea. In What If, you ask your child silly time questions, like “What if we eat supper at two thirty?” or “What if we go to the store at five in the morning?” or “What if you use three hours to brush your teeth?” Have him ask you What If questions, too. This game will help him understand about time and sequence.

Analog clocks help show time in a way that can be easier for some children to understand. All children need to learn how to read these clocks, anyway; the concept of ‘clockwise’ is very important and analog clocks are common enough. If you don’t have an analog clock in your home, get one. Show her the numbers on the analog clock, and talk with her about the hour and minute hands. Talk about how the minute hand moves from one number to the next in five minutes, but the hour hand uses an hour to do the same thing. Put an analog clock in a place where she can see it often.

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