Telling the time
Why do children find it difficult to read analogue time?
Reading a clock can look effortless to an adult. For a child, it is a surprisingly complex piece of mathematical reasoning: two moving hands, two units of measurement and several ways of describing the same moment all have to make sense together.
Two hands share one clock—but do different jobs
The short hand represents hours and the long hand represents minutes. Children must identify which is which, read each against a different scale, and then combine both answers.
The numbers have more than one meaning
The numeral 3 can mean three o’clock when the hour hand points to it, but fifteen minutes past when the minute hand points to it. A child therefore has to switch between counting in ones and counting in fives while looking at the same set of numerals.
The hour hand is always moving
At half past seven, the short hand does not sit on 7. It is halfway towards 8. Later in the hour it moves closer still to the next numeral, so choosing the nearest number can produce the wrong hour. Research into clock reading has found that understanding and positioning the hour hand is especially challenging.
Time language asks children to change direction
“Twenty past four” counts forward from the current hour, while “twenty to five” counts towards the next one. Words such as half and quarter also connect clock reading to fractions.