1. In this lesson you will learn how to tell what time it is when
What is the Time?
In this lesson you will learn how to tell what time it is when
you look at a clock.

2. Clocks come in many different shapes and sizes.
They are found everywhere.
There are clocks in houses,
on wrists, and even on the
outside of buildings.
It is important to know how to tell time so that
you don’t become late for some important event.

3. There are 24 hours in a day. The day is broken up into
two parts: A.M. (the morning hours) and P.M. (the evening
hours). Every clock has 12 hours on it which
stands for half of a day.
Minute Hand
Hour Hand
The long “hand” on the clock is called the MINUTE HAND,
and the short hand is called the HOUR HAND. The minute
hand goes around the clock once an hour, and the hour hand
goes around the clock once every twelve hours. The blue numbers
are the hour numbers, and the red numbers are the minutes in each
hour.

4. First let’s learn about the whole hours on a clock. Whole Hour
1:00
5:00
3:00
One o’clock
Five o’clock
Three o’clock
Notice that the minute hand is always pointing to the 12 on
every hour. Also notice when it is 1:00, the hour hand is
pointing to the 1. When it is 5:00, the hour hand is pointing
to the 5. When it is any o’clock, the hour hand is pointing
to the number of o’clock that it is. “O’clock” means “of the
clock.” So if it is “Three o’clock,” that means it is 3:00, which
means it is “three of the clock.” The minute hand is pointing
at the 12 and the hour hand is pointing at the 3.

5. Time to learn the “half hour”
There are 60 minutes in each hour. The minute hand on a clock
points to each of the 60 minutes before a new hour is reached.
A half an hour is 30 minutes into the hour.
When it is “half past” an hour, the MINUTE
hand is pointing to the 6, or in the case of
these clocks, the
minute hand is also
pointing to the red 30.
When it is half past an
hour, the hour hand is
halfway between the
current hour and the hour that is coming up
next. Study the pictures of clocks on this page.
What times do you think these clocks read?

6. This clock reads 10:30. There are two ways
to say this with words. One way is “ten thirty.”
Another way is to say “half past ten.” Notice
that the hour hand is in between the 10 and 11.
This clock shows 5:30. The two other ways to
say this are “five thirty” and “half past five.”
Notice that the hour hand is in between the 5
and 6.
This clock reads 2:30. “Half past two” and
“two thirty” are other ways to read this clock.
Notice that the hour hand is in between the 2
and 3.

7. There are two important things to remember when telling time
on the half hour.
#1: The hour hand will always be directly in between two
numbers on the
clock, and
whatever hour
has the thirty
minutes past in
it will be the
hour before the
other hour the
minute hand is near.
#2: The minute
hand
will always be
pointing to the 6.

8. Time to learn in 5 minutes!
It is easy to learn how to read a clock in five minute increments.
These clocks have the minutes in red, so whatever the minute
hand is pointing to, that is the number of minutes that have
passed in the given hour.
5:10
9:20
1:25
This clock reads 5:10
because the minute hand
is pointing to the 10, and the
hour hand is just past the 5.
9:20 is represented on
this clock. The minute
hand points to the 20, and
the hour hand is just past the 9.
This reads 1:25. The
minute hand is pointing to the
25 and the hour hand passed
the 1.

9. Not every clock will have the minutes written right on it,
however. Therefore, you must know what minutes go with
the hour numbers on a clock.
Study the clock and the following chart and try to remember
what minute numbers go with each hour number. An easy way
to remember this concept is to remember that the minute numbers
go up by 5 on every hour number.
What time does this clock say?
Hour Number Minute Number
1 5
2 10
3 15
4 20
5 25
6 30
7 35
8 40
9 45
10 50
11 55
or 00
6:55 (“Six Fifty-five” or “Five to Seven”)

10. When the minute hand on a clock points to the 3 or the 9,
there are significant ways to say what time is represented.
This clock reads 12:45. You can either
read this by saying “Twelve Forty-five,”
or “Quarter to One.” You can say that it
is quarter to 1:00 because there is only ¼
of an hour left in the 12:00 hour.
¼=“one quarter.” Therefore, there is one
quarter before the next hour, which is 1:00.
So, you can say, “The time is quarter to one.”
The same applies to this clock. This clock
reads 7:15, which is “Seven Fifteen,” or
“Quarter after Seven.” One quarter of an hour
has passed after seven. You can only say this
when the minute hand points to the 3.

11. Time to learn minutes
Learning how to read specific minutes on a clock is very simple
as soon as you’ve mastered every other aspect of reading a clock.
10:07
The key to reading the minutes on a clock is
looking where the minute hand is placed.
When it is not pointing directly to an hour
number and it is somewhere in between them,
you must look closely to see if there are little
dashes on the clock. There are four dashes in
between each hour number, and each dash
represents one minute. For example, if the
minute hand points to the third dash after an
hour number, that means that three minutes have
passed since that hour number was reached.
12:41

12. 1:23 9:56 This clock shows the minute hand pointing
to the third dash after the 4th hour number.
Notice the position of the hour hand-it is in
between the 1 and the 2. Therefore,
what time does this clock say?
1:23
9:56
This clock time is very tricky. Notice that
the minute hand is pointing to the first dash
after the 11th hour number. Remember that
the 11th hour number stands for 55 minutes.
55+1=56. The hour hand is almost pointing
to the 10 but has not reached it yet.
Therefore, the time is what?

13. Picture what a clock would look like
if it read 7:37. The minute hand would
be 2 minutes past 35, which is what
hour number? The hour hand would be in
between which two numbers?
Is this clock what you
pictured in your head?
What would 4:12 look like on a clock? Think
about where the minute hand would be and
what two numbers the hour hand should be in
between.
This is what 4:12 looks
like on a clock.

14. The last part of telling time is determining
the difference between the A.M. hours and the
P.M. hours. It is important to remember that
the A.M. hours are the first 12 hours in the
day. In other words, A.M. means morning.
P.M. hours refer to the afternoon hours—the
second 12 hours in the day.
When reading a clock, the time could be either A.M. or P.M. It
is up to you to determine if the clock read is the time in the
morning hours (A.M.) or evening hours (P.M.).
This clock reads 3:30. This could be 3:30
in the morning OR in the evening. If it is
3:30 in the morning, it would be 3:30 A.M.
If it is 3:30 in the evening, it would read
3:30 P.M.