Being able to tell the time is a very important skill to learn, after all you need to know what time it is to make sure you get up on time, get to school, work and appointments on time and generally be aware of when things are happening.
We have a 10-year-old in the house who is having a struggle learning to tell the time, a lot of it is down to confidence, and while she has been working on it over the summer holidays she was delighted when she received the EasyRead Time Teacher Watch (ertt).
The ertt watch is a watch that has been specifically designed to help children learn to learn the time (clocks are also available). The watches are available in two different formats: Past & To and 24 hour and a variety of colours, so will appeal to boys and girls alike. The watch face isn’t too small and easy to read so children will have no problems looking at the numbers. The strap is easily removed so can easily be replaced – ertt have replacements on their website so replacement straps can be purchased and children can have different colours to suit different outfits.
We let her look through the website to pick her own watch as she is the one that will be wearing it so should be something she likes. She chose a watch with a purple strap and rainbow face in the Past & To style.
The watch comes complete with a guide, to teach the wearer the ertt teaching system. Basically, the watch looks mostly like a standard watch, except the face is divided into two halves: the first half of the dial is colour-coded as green for ‘past the hour’, and the second half is purple and means ‘to the hour’. In addition to the normal twelve numbers on the dial, there is a second run of numbers around the very outer edge of the watch. On the first half, these count from 0-30, then on the second half, they count back the other way back to zero. This means that to tell the time, all the child has to do is read the ‘time sentence’. So in the example below, the child would read the number at the end of the long hand (8), say which side of the face the minutes hand is on (minutes to), then say the number that the little hand is pointing to (2), so they would say “eight minutes to two”.
Happy with the watch once it arrived, we explained the concept of how the Past & To segments of the watch worked and she picked it up very easily. While her confidence is not the greatest when having to learn something new, the watch is really helping. The concept is simple, and she is now able to work out the time by sight rather than now using the colours, including minutes rather that just the quarter of an hour.
While this watch is aimed at children 4 years plus, it doesn’t look babyish and the construction is excellent. With it’s bright, clear face and colourful removable strap it is perfect for any age child starting their journey of telling the time.
In just under a week she has gone from having no confidence and saying “I can’t do it”, to being able to time the time quite accurately in minutes to and past the hour. So for an outlay of just £25 it is a fantastic investment – there is even a waterproof version available for under £35, plus clocks, games and classroom resources!
This is a fantastic concept for children learning to tell the time or struggling just to grasp the concept, it actually works and quickly. It’s not expensive and its also a fashion accessory that children will like wearing.
Definitely worthy of 5 stars and a valuable educational tool.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £25
For more information or to buy visit www.easyreadtimeteacher.com.
DISCLOSURE: I received this product for free for the purpose of writing an honest and impartial review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
 watch is a watch that has been specifically designed to help children learn to learn the time (clocks are also available).){kind=link}