Irregular Past Tense Verbs: Where Do I Start?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever struggled with figuring out how and in what order to teach irregular past tense verbs? ME!! So I delved into the research to find out.

Some irregular verbs like “hit” and “hurt” develop as early as 3-3.5 years of age. Others such as “sent, shook, and built” don’t develop until 8 years of age (Shipley, Maddox, & Driver, 1991). Further research on vocabulary has shown that children with Specific Language Impairment require 36 exposures to learn new words (Storkel et. al, 2017). I created a teaching binder that provides you with a systematic way to teach the 40 most common irregular verbs in the order of acquisition. Different activities are included in order to provide several exposures of each verb. I’ve been using it since I created it and it has helped me have a set procedure for introducing and teaching these difficult verbs.

Click here to take a look at this resource!

Shipley, K., Maddox, M., & Driver, J. (1991). Children’s Development of Irregular Past Tense Verb Forms. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 22, 115-122. doi: https://doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461.2203.115

Storkel et. al. (2017). Interactive Book Reading to Accelerate Word Learning by Kindergarten Children with Specific Language Impairment: Identifying an Adequate Intensity and Variation in Treatment Response. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 48, 16-30. doi: https://doi.org/10.1044/2016_LSHSS-16-0014