Kids Learning To Tell Time

It is a shame that so few adults remember how hard it was to learn things that we now take for granted as grown ups. Tasks like learning to tie your shoes, understanding addition and subtraction, and of course learning to read are extremely difficult. Recently, my daughter was having trouble in school learning to tell time. Usually, she is at the head of her class, but in this particular task she was doing pretty poorly. She couldn't seem to get it right.

The teacher was actually pretty mean to her. She was used to my daughter being sort of the teacher's pet, and the fact that she was failing at learning how to tell time felt to her like a betrayal. I couldn't understand this woman. It is as if she had forgotten what kids were all about. It is difficult to learn how to tell time, and the task is different for different kids.

Of course, it fell to me as her parent to help her with learning to tell time. We bought some teaching supplies and got to work at home. For me, it was like learning to tell time all over again. I had to really get inside her mind, figure out how her thought process went, and what wasn't working. We did all the standard things, using fake clocks, learning worksheets, story problems and the like. No matter what we did, however, she just could not get it. I could tell that she felt bad about it, as if she were stupid. Even though I told her that she was going to get it, she still felt like she was letting me down.

Finally, one day she figured out what was stopping her from learning to tell time. It was having to learn what the two hands were doing at the same time. Usually, the teacher worked with one hand at a time, but even so the other hand was on the clock. I decided to scrap the idea. I made her a clock with only one hand – the hour hand. As soon as she learned that one, I had her study the minute hand. It took a while longer, but soon she had it. She was so proud that I had to laugh. It made me happy to see her mood change so drastically over what looks to grownups to be such a simple task. For kids, learning to tell time is anything but simple.

Summary