Review: Telling Time to the Hour and Half Hour

This is not just for paper. Reading a clock is a daily freedom. It lets you keep your word about when you will arrive. This is worth learning because telling time lets you keep promises about when you will be somewhere.

Watch for it today, and when you spot it, tell someone what you noticed and how you knew. Ask yourself where else the same idea might be hiding, then go and look.

Today you get to learn something useful. Time is yours now. Minute hand straight up means o’clock. Minute hand straight down means half past, with the hour hand halfway between two numbers.

You can read hands and digital, say a time two ways, and draw hands to show a given time. Check a clock four times today and say the time out loud, using both forms whenever the time is on the half hour.

Try this all day today. Every time you pass a clock, read it aloud and say whether it is on the hour, past the half hour, or somewhere between. Practice scattered through a day sticks better than practice piled into ten minutes. Go slowly the first time and faster the fifth time.