Reading a clock

Reading an analog clock is typically hard for young learners in primary school as well as for people suffering from dementia.<ref>Sunderland, T., Hill, J. L., Mellow, A. M., Lawlor, B. A., Gundersheimer, J., Newhouse, P. A., & Grafman, J. H. (1989). Clock drawing in Alzheimer's disease: a novel measure of dementia severity. Journal of the American Geriatrics society, 37(8), 725-729.</ref> In Decoding the Disciplines it often serves to exemplify the process of Decoding.<ref>Riegler, P. (2025): The Decoding Clock Reading Activity. Didaktiknachrichten, Issue January 2025, in press
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Description of bottleneck

People find it hard to read of the information coded by the hands of a clock and translate this information into a valid description of clock time.

Description of mental tasks needed to overcome the bottleneck

• There are two scales on an analog clock. A coarse one counting from 1 to 12 in steps of 30° and a finer one counting from 0 to 59 in steps of 6°.
• If there is a fast moving hand, ignore this one for the time being, although it typically catches one's attention first.
• To determine the hour, locate hour hand. This is usually the smallest hand. Read the position of this hand on the scale from 1 to 12. If the hand is between two such position take the smaller value.
• To determine the minutes, locate minute hand. This is usually the larger hand. Read the position of this hand on the scale from 0 to 59.
• If there is a fast moving hand, it indicates the seconds analogously to the minute hand.

People interested in this bottleneck

Christian Kautz, Peter Riegler

Available resources

• The paper The Decoding Clock Reading Activity describes the origin of the activity and provides materials.
• Photographs of unusual clock faces

References

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