Learning to read an analog clock is an important part of child development, but for many youngsters this can be a difficult and frustrating process.
This is particularly true of children with Dyslexia, who can struggle to learn to tell the time easily when using a clock that has hands and numbers.
Here we look at some of the issues dyslexic children encounter when learning to tell the time, and how our range of teaching products can help.
Challenges facing dyslexic children
There are a few primary challenges that make it difficult for children with Dyslexia when learning to tell the time using a standard analog clock face, these include:
Issues when distinguishing between the minute and hour hands
Confusion with concepts such as before (to) and after (past)
Difficulty identifying smaller units of time such as 1.01, 1.02, 1.03 etc
Struggles with linguistic codes such as ‘clockwise’ and ‘quarter-past’
These issues can cause dyslexic children to feel frustrated and embarrassed when learning to tell the time and often discourages them, so teaching aids can be a highly effective method of developing understanding and familiarity in a fun way.
How our products can help
Our team have spoken to many parents, teachers and SEN specialists to find out how they feel EasyRead products and our adapted teaching system helps dyslexic children to learn to tell the time.
The overall feedback suggested that our products could offer significant assistance with dyslexic children or pupils for the following reasons:
Our products and teaching system are highly appealing to children, encouraging participation
The numbers used on our clock and watch faces are large and visible
It is beneficial to have 1-5 in each segment for the ‘past’ and ‘to’ and 1-59 on the 24 hour
Use of distinguished red and blue colouring for the ‘minutes to’ and ‘minutes past’
Use of fractions to help familiarise with the concept of ‘quarter-past’, ‘half-past’ etc
There is no ticking sound, which dyslexic children can find distracting
Perhaps the most important thing that we have learned from parents and teachers is that Dyslexia is not a straightforward condition, as it can vary dramatically from person to person. However, the majority of feedback has suggested that with practice and perseverance our products can contribute considerably to helping dyslexic children to tell the time.
Find out more
If you would like to find out more about our range of ‘learn to tell the time clocks’ and how they can help dyslexic children to develop their time telling skills, please contact our friendly team on 01684 566832.
For parents, they may come around too quickly, and for teachers perhaps not quickly enough, but here we are again in the school holidays. Another break from learning might seem like a good idea to worn out kids, but many parents will worry that their children will forget what they have learned over the last term. Time teaching is one of those skills – once grasped it is easy to retain, however, if your child is still in the learning phase, or is struggling with the concept of an analogue clock in this digital world, then these school holidays are the perfect time to top up learning.
But just because we said learning, it doesn’t mean it can’t be fun! After all, early years is all about learning through play, so here are our top tips to make teaching time fun this school holiday:
4 Top Tips to Make Teaching Time Fun
Use a colourful clock or watch that will appeal to young learners – our EasyRead Time Teacher clocks and watches come in a variety of colours and feature our popular ‘past and to’ time teaching method which is a proven way of learning to tell the time quickly and easily. You can choose from clocks for the bedroom wall, alarm clocks to help sleepy heads get up in the morning or watches with colourful straps to help young learners keep track of the time. If you’re not sure which product best suits your children, our helpful team are happy to advise – please call us on 01684 566832 for more information.
Make time teaching into a game – you might think this is easier said than done, but with our tell the time snap game, children can practise their time telling skills without really realising it. Everyone loves a game of snap, so this is something the whole family can join in with! Or why not try making your own game of snap? Simply set your EasyRead Time Teacher clock to different times and take a photograph of each time, print out and cut into the same sizes and stick onto cardboard squares (cut from an old cereal packet or shoe box) for added strength!
Tie the time in with your children’s favourite activities – we all know the effort that goes into planning a school holiday and what you will need to organise to keep children entertained, so why not get them involved by setting a timetable? Ask children to make a chart of what you will do each day, with the times written by the side (or draw a clock face and let them add the hands). Then you can ask them to check their clock or watch and let you know when it is time for lunch, time to visit friends, to go to the park or to eat some left-over Easter egg!
Make a human clock – ok, so this one requires a room full of children, which is not every parents’ idea of fun during the holidays, but if you happen to get together with friends and want a fun yet educational activity, try this. Ask the children to sit or stand in a circle, with each child representing a number on the clock from 1 to 12. Children can then take it in turns to be the second and hour hand, lying on the floor and pointing to the numbers.
By making learning fun, you can keep your children engaged with learning to tell the time even when they are not at school.
For products to help with teaching time please click here.
Learning to tell the time is a vital ability and an essential part of early maths learning but getting to grips with this skill can be tricky for many children. At the Toy Fair recently, whilst exhibiting and generally having a huge amount of fun, EasyRead Time Teacher’s Sue Shackleton met up with an enthusiastic group of youngsters to see what they thought about our three-step time teaching system.
Step 1 – is to look at the long hand and see what number it is pointing to Step 2 – is to look at which side of the clock this number is on – PAST or TO Step 3 – is to look at the number at the end of the short hand
Then we put all three steps together to tell the time!
Our young audience got really involved and were even astute enough to point out that by the time we had explained our three-point system it was no longer 16 minutes past eleven but actually 17 minutes past!
Our alarm clock was a popular product with our young panel, especially the light up feature and even though some of our audience were too learned to give us the full thumbs up, (time telling had been part of their repertoire for several years), we suspect their parents may have greatly appreciated our products a few years ago when they were first learning.
It was our first time at the Toy Fair and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We would like to thank everyone who came along to our stand and spoke to us throughout the event, and thanks to the Toy Fair for making us feel very welcome.
For more information on any of our time teaching products on display at the Toy Fair please contact us on 01684 566832.
EasyRead Time Teacher was founded in 2011 and since then our time teaching products have helped thousands of children to learn how to tell the time.
Here we explain why our specialist teaching products offer the perfect tool for helping youngsters through the right of passage that is learning how to tell the time:
We believe that learning should be fun
We all understand how difficult it is to learn and adapt to something that we find boring or unengaging, and this is no different for children.
As standard clock faces can appear uninteresting, we put every effort to design educational tools that are bright, attractive and interactive. If a child is having fun, we believe this will only benefit interaction and engagement during the learning process.
Our teaching methods offer simplicity
We first developed our three-step learning technique back in 1992 and believe it to be the most effective teaching system available for learning to tell the time.
A large part of this success comes from the fact that our learning resources offer a structured and uncomplicated method for telling the time, one that gives the person who is learning a simple but effective learning experience.
An interactive range of teaching products
Our educational time teaching products come in a selection of timepieces that promote guided and independent learning for children.
Time Teacher Clocks are popular as they provide an excellent teaching aid and a visible daily reminder of the importance and structure of time. Our Wrist Watches and Alarm Clocks offer a highly interactive method of building a child’s familiarity with the concept of time and the responsibilities that are attached to it.
If you would like to find out more about our great range of time teaching products available in the United Kingdom, please contact Sue on 01684 566832.
It’s been a hectic few months for us here at EasyRead Time Teacher, attending five major trade shows in the first 3 months of 2017. In the UK you may have seen us talking to teachers at BETT and the Education Show, or showcasing our products to retailers at the Spring Fair. We also made our first marketing trip into Europe at Spielwarenmesse (International Toy Fair) in Nuremberg, Germany; and we’ve been showing our products to USA educational retailers at EDexpo in Las Vegas. We were shortlisted as finalists in the UK Educational Resources Awards, thanks to our KS1 maths time-teacher classroom sets.
We’re now pleased to announce our latest new product, which will be available in Australia, the UK & USA by the end of April. We have been hard at work for the past year developing our children’s alarm clocks – perfect for a child’s bedroom! We’ve given our alarm clocks three great features:
A crescendo alarm, which starts with a gentle beep and gets progressively louder until it is turned off or the snooze button is pressed, delaying it for 5 minutes;
The clock face is back-lit and acts as a night light, which glows gently in the dark and gets brighter when the snooze button is pressed;
A silent sweep movement so there is no annoying ticking sound.
Our alarm clocks are available in two colour schemes – rainbow or red & blue. Of course we have made them for both time teaching systems – Past & To or 24-Hour. The alarm clocks have the same face designs as our wall clocks and children’s wrist watches, and come with a reminder of our simple step-by-step time teaching methods. Click here to view the new EasyRead Alarm Clocks.
