It's no mystery!  Your electric meter can easily be read if you understand some basic rules.  Each of the five dials represents one digit of the present reading.   As you can see, the dials move both clockwise and counter clockwise.  When the hand of one of the dials is between numbers, always take the smaller number.  For example:

If you cannot tell if a hand is past a number or not, simply look at the dial to the right.  If it has passed zero, then the hand is pointing to the correct number.  If the dial to the right has not passed zero, then use the next smaller number.  Totally confused?  Let's try another example: