Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion when did your gifted child learn to tell time

Surprisingly late. Colin's been able to read a digital clock for a couple of years now (he's 6y2m now), I'd say, but it's not something he's ever been particularly interested in, and I have definitely not encouraged interest because it was convenient to be able to say it was bedtime whenever I felt like it! (And we're fortunate in having very un-clock-driven lives, so it didn't come up much.) Around the time he started school I realised I should buy him an analogue clock as we had none in the house! He still isn't totally utterly secure with analogue time, and dislikes time questions on maths sheets (though if he concentrates he can do them now). Curiously, about the only thing *I* remember from school maths before about the age of 8 is how much I hated clock questions. Nature or nurture? His teacher, interestingly, was very unsurprised.

Same thing at our house! They both read digital clocks pretty early, but neither were particularly interested in clocks. We just don't run our lives on a very tight schedule! We also eventually had to go out and buy an analog clock to teach DS to read one. I guess I should get that out for DD5 to take a look at now!

My 2E son could read digital clocks at three. He learned how to read an analog clock before he turned five--around the same time he started counting the amount of change I gave him. Once he was able to count by 5's easily, reading the analog clock was easy.

But there were some analog clocks and watches that he was not able to read. It took me a while to figure out that it was because there was not enough difference in the length of the clock hands.

I sat down with DS at age 3 1/2 and he learned it within a couple "sessions"...

It didn't come up in our day-to-day life until DC19's kindergarten year when clocks were necessary, but it came quickly after that for him and DC16.

DS8 got a watch (flik flak) for his 4th birthday because he was into telling time so I guess he had it mostly worked out when he was 3. I think his interest may have been sparked by some of the puzzles in the Math Storm Adventure game. He loved that game at that age. Anyone else know that game?

DD6 has enough grasp to get through the "time" section in math but has no interest in it.

Our son was just past 3. I remember because he used to drive his preschool teachers nuts. They'd try to fudge the time to get the kids going in one direction of the other and he'd pipe up with the correct time. One teacher used him to her advantage, though -- she made him the classroom clock monitor. She created the job just for him and said it worked great! He was in charge of giving 5 minute warnings for lunches, recesses, etc.

He was working on it at 2.5, but I would say he really got it for the most part around 3 to 3.5.

I remember the night my mother died, when he was 2.5, he got me up in the middle of the night because he was hungry--it had been a rough day and he hadn't eaten much. I was making him some chicken nuggets and he looked at the clock and said "3:10." I looked at the clock, and it was actually 2:15--which you might notice looks pretty much like 3:10! He was kind of hit or miss at that point, but it wasn't much longer before he had it down pat.

Lol! I still have not learned to read time without thinking about it, like most people seem to. My ds seemed to be on that path, but has learned at the regular age. They seem to have a lot more practice in his school than I recall having, but also I just never cared about it very much. Dd3.5 has started asking 'at what number on the clock are you going to come and get me?' so perhaps she has a bit more interest.

My DD learned at 5 in K when they introduced clocks. Learning time to the hour was not enough for her. She learned the 1/4 hour stuff in grade 1

My DS 3.5 we have not talked about time to much, but he does know that the hour hand shows what hour we are in.