Write a regular past tense verb

What it looks like when your child can do it

• — Telling you about the morning, your child writes "We played outside and raked leaves" with both endings spelled right.
• — Your child writes hoped with one p and stopped with two.
• — Your child writes carried and cried, changing the y to i.

How to teach it at the kitchen table

1. 01

   Start with the plain ed

   Most verbs add ed: walk, walked; jump, jumped; play, played. Have your child say three things they did yesterday that take ed, like played or helped, and write each one. If ate or ran comes up, save it for later, since those do not follow the rule.

2. 02

   Words ending in e add d

   Hope becomes hoped, bake becomes baked, smile becomes smiled. The e is already there, so only a d goes on.

3. 03

   Double the last letter in short words

   In one-beat words that end in one vowel and one consonant, like stop, hop and clap, double the last letter first: stopped, hopped, clapped. Words ending in w, x or y skip this, as in snowed, fixed and played. Say hoped and hopped side by side so your child hears why the spelling matters.

4. 04

   Change y to i after a consonant

   When a consonant comes before the y, change the y to i and add ed: carry, carried; try, tried. When a vowel comes before the y, keep it: stay, stayed. It is the same y rule your child uses for plurals like berries.

5. 05

   Three sounds, one spelling

   Ed sounds like t in walked, like d in played, and like its own beat in planted. All three are spelled ed, so remind your child to write ed even when they hear a t.

You will need: Paper and a pencil · A small chart of the four spelling patterns

Try it together

1. Try 1

   Ask your child to write the past tense of jump, play and paint.

   Listen for  Jumped, played and painted. All three add ed with no other change.

2. Try 2

   Ask for the past tense of smile and bake.

   Listen for  Smiled and baked. Each already ends in e, so only a d is added.

3. Try 3

   Ask for the past tense of stop and hug.

   Listen for  Stopped and hugged. Each is a short word ending in one vowel and one consonant, so the last letter doubles.

4. Try 4

   Ask for the past tense of cry and stay.

   Listen for  Cried and stayed. Cry has a consonant before the y, so the y changes to i. Stay has a vowel before the y, so the y stays.

5. Try 5

   Say: "Yesterday we walk to the store." Ask your child to fix the sentence and write the verb.

   Listen for  Walked. Listen for the t sound at the end, and check that it is written ed, not t.

Watch for

• — Runned and flied. If your child writes these, it is a good sign the ed rule has taken hold. Words like ran and flew get their own lesson in the book.

If it is not there yet

• — Work only the plain ed words and the words that end in e for a while. Leave doubling and y words until those two feel automatic.
• — Keep a small chart with one example of each rule, like walked, hoped, stopped and carried, where your child can see it while writing.

A few days of this is normal, and it is time well spent. The lesson will still be there, and it will go faster.

Where this skill comes up

• The Parts of Speech, Told by the Greek Myths · Lesson 13

  Irregular Past Tense Verbs

  Needs it because these forms are learned as exceptions, which only means something once the ed pattern is automatic.