How to teach verb tenses

Tense shows when a verb's action happens: in the past, the present, or the future. Regular past-tense verbs add -ed, as in walked, the future usually uses will, as in will walk, and the present changes with the subject, as in I walk and she walks.

Verb tenses are usually taught from Grade 2 to Grade 5. Students sort actions onto a timeline of past, present and future, learn the regular past and future forms, tackle common irregular verbs, and practise keeping one tense consistent across a sentence or paragraph.

Regular verbs add -ed to make the past tense, so walk becomes walked and jump becomes jumped. Many common verbs are irregular, though, and do not follow this rule, such as go becoming went and see becoming saw, so those have to be learned separately.

Irregular verbs do not follow the add -ed rule for the past tense. Instead they change form, such as go becoming went, see becoming saw, and eat becoming ate. Because there are many of them and they are common, building a small chart and practising them until known is the usual approach.

Keeping one tense consistent across a whole sentence or paragraph is where most errors show, as children switch from past to present without meaning to. Editing sentences that swap tense wrongly, fixing them back to a single matching tense, is a good way to build consistency.

Because they have learned the regular rule and apply it everywhere, producing forms like 'goed' or 'runned'. This is a normal stage. A chart of common irregular verbs, practised until the correct forms like went and ran are known, gradually replaces the over-applied rule.

In the present tense, verbs add -s after he, she or it, so it is 'she walks', not 'she walk'. Forgetting this -s is a common error. Practising the third-person form alongside the others helps children hear when the -s is needed.