15 Strategies to Help Learners Who Cannot Tell Time

Are you looking for strategies to help students who cannot tell time? If so, keep reading.

1. Make sure the student knows all the ideas involved in telling time (e.g., counting by 15s, 10s, 5s; the big hand; the little hand; etc.).

2. Make sure the student knows the ideas of morning, afternoon, evening, and night.

3. Make sure the student knows which seasons come before and after other seasons.

4. Make sure the student knows the concept of the length of a minute, five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, one hour, ninety minutes, twenty-four hours, etc.

5. Make sure the student has a standard clock in the classroom to use as a visual reference.

6. Make sure the student knows the number of hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a year, etc.

7. Make sure the student knows the terms used in telling time (e.g., “a quarter ’til,” “half past,” “ten ’til,” “a quarter after,” etc.).

8. Make sure the student can count by common divisors of time (e.g., one minute, five minutes, ten minutes, thirty minutes, an hour, etc.).

9. Get the student to recognize when activities happen in the daily routine (schedule) (e.g., recess at 10:15, lunch at 11:45, dismissal at 3:20, etc.).

10. Get the student to indicate when the clock in the classroom is on the hour.

11. Get the student to indicate when the clock in the classroom is on the half hour.

12. Get the student to indicate when the clock in the classroom is on the quarter hour.

13. Consider using Alexa for the Math Classroom.

14. Try gamifying your math lessons.

15. Consider using one of the apps and tools from our many math app lists:

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