 I realized something a while back. Children can learn lists very quickly. Counting--1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on—is a list. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so on, is a list. The months of the year are a list. The alphabet is a list. They generally remember these lists through repetition and use. So based on this notion, I taught my daughter to tell time. She had always seen Mommy and Daddy’s wristwatches and expressed interest in having one. We counseled that once she was telling time, wearing a wristwatch made perfect sense.About a year ago, when she was turning 2-1/2, I began teaching her to tell time. The first list was the hours. I used an oversized clock with only the hour and minute hands. I would position them on the hours and say them aloud. Then she learned to position them on the hours herself (which she liked to do). We would only do this exercise for very brief periods--no longer then a couple of minutes at a time. Maybe twice a day.Within a short time she knew the list of hours.Then came the next list. The 05’s, the 10’s, the 15’s, etc. As you can see, if you teach this next part, it’s a list counting by fives. Counting by fives they can take in pretty quickly. Counting by fives and showing the stations of the clock is a little bit slower because they’re learning two things at the same time. On a big clock, it’s easy to see that the hour hand is not all the way on the next number. On a wristwatch, well, not so easy to see. Also, if you use a clock with a second hand, that will distract them visually. So by the time she had turned 3 years old, she could tell you the hour and up to 45 minutes after the hour. She was accessing that ability to learn lists. By the time she was 3- 1/4 years old, she was able to tell time (and count by fives up to one hundred).She was thrilled with her accomplishment.The only difficulty (as I said, and it’s a persistent one), is that as the time gets closer to the hour and the hour hand moves very close to the next number, there’s visual confusion. If the time is 5.45 or 5.50, she might say 6.45 or 6.50. This is due to the small size of wristwatches.The big day finally came! My little one asked, “Daddy, I can tell time, may I have a wristwatch?”“Yes, you may, cutie,” I replied.So, just around Christmas time, the family climbed into the car and made the trip to the watch store. We were able to explain to the clerk the kind of watch we were looking for (as large a face as possible, large numbers, no second hand).Bingo! He found one. My little one walked over to the clerk and he strapped it on her. She turned around to look at Mommy and Daddy with a big smile, mixed with shyness and happiness.As we walked out of the store that evening, she kept glancing at her new watch. I looked down at her and asked, “Honey, what time does your watch have?”“6.25!” she exclaimed. Amazing. all content The New Parent © 2007
|