Start by introducing the past tense using regular verbs before moving on to irregular verbs once the child is more confident and using the regular past tense consistently.

Regular past tense

These are verbs where the past tense is marked with an ‘ed’ ending e.g. ‘cooked’, ‘jumped’, ‘kicked’ etc. Your child may need lots of models of the past tense before they are able to start using it themselves.

Simon says – Ask the child to do an action as in ‘Simon says’ and then ask “What did you do?” Encourage the child to answer using the past tense e.g. “I jumped”.

Walkabout – Take the child on a walk around the house, the garden etc, and talk about where you walked e.g. “We walked to the dining room. We walked to the shed”.

Yesterday – Talk together about what you did yesterday; you could refer back to a diary you have made, or some pictures you have taken. Model the past tense e.g. “We played in the park” or “We baked some biscuits”.

Stories – When you and your child have finished reading a book together, talk about what happened in the story. Ask your child questions e.g. “What did the boy do first?” “He climbed the tree”.

Action cards – Use action picture cards to talk about what happened e.g. “What did the man do?” “He cooked the sausages”.

Irregular past tense

One of the best ways to teach irregular past tense verbs is by repeating and modelling as the child makes an error, for example:

Child: “I sawed the bus”Adult: “I saw the bus too, it was driving very fast”.

Activities for developing use of past tense

You can play the games suggested above using irregular verbs but remember that the child may find this much harder. Choose a few irregular verbs to work on at a time rather than trying to teach them all in one go.

Examples of irregular verbs are: made, wrote, drew, ate, saw, read, threw, cut, went, bought etc.

Shopping trip – Play a game gathering together shopping items in your shopping basket/trolley. Once the child has finished shopping, ask them ‘What have you bought?’. Model the phrase “I bought…”.

Space trip – Play a game imagining that you have been on a journey into space and are telling each other what you saw while you were there. Model the phrase “I saw…” e.g. “I saw the moon”. You can play different versions of this game e.g. ‘I went to the beach and I saw’, ‘I went to the zoo and I saw’ etc.

Party game – Play a game imagining you have been to a party and are telling each other about the food you ate and drank at the party. Model the phrase “I ate…” and “I drank…” e.g. “I ate sandwiches”, “I drank apple juice”.

For specific teaching of irregular past tense verbs see the Black Sheep Press packs available on their website.