What is this skill?
Past tense tells about something that already happened. Most verbs add -ed: walk becomes walked, watch becomes watched, brush becomes brushed. But many common verbs change in their own way. Run becomes ran, eat becomes ate, go becomes went, see becomes saw and write becomes wrote. Second graders learn both groups and, over time, begin to hear which one a verb belongs to.
Most questions are a sentence with a blank and a time clue: "Yesterday, Maya ___ to the store," "Last night, we ___ a movie," "Last summer, we ___ to the beach." The child picks the right form from three, and wrong options include the forms children often make up: runned, sleeped, eated, goed, writed. Sorting questions ask which verbs show now and which show the past, and a harder one asks whether a verb shows the past with -ed or by changing. Yes/no cards, like "We hopped to the door" and "Yesterday I runned fast," ask whether the past-tense word is right. The hardest choice questions include wrote and brought.
Why it matters
Writing about what happened is where children use past tense most: a trip, a birthday, what they did at recess. A child who mixes tenses writes confusing stories, so this skill supports every narrative they will write.
Mistakes like "runned" are usually a sign of learning, not carelessness. A child who says "goed" has often worked out the -ed rule alone and applied it everywhere. The next step is to learn which words break the rule, and that comes from hearing and reading them often.
Common mistakes
- Adding -ed to a verb that changes, as in "runned," "eated" and "goed." Say the correct form warmly and move on: "Yes, we ran to the car." Repeating it correctly teaches more than a lecture.
- Using the present form after a time clue, like "Yesterday I walk." Ask what time clue the sentence has. Yesterday, last night and last week all point to the past.
- Using a form that belongs to a different tense, such as "written" instead of wrote. Written is a real word, but it needs a helper like "has." On its own, wrote is the past.
- Mixing up similar forms like brang for brought. English has a lot of these, and the best cure is hearing the right form many times.
How to help at home
- Ask about the day at dinner, "What did you do at school?" and listen for past forms. Model the verbs back if one slips.
- Play "yesterday I..." and take turns adding a past-tense verb: "Yesterday I ate a sandwich."
- Make two columns, "now" and "then," and write verb pairs together: walk and walked, run and ran.
- Read a picture book and look for past-tense words. Many stories are told in the past, so they are easy to find.
Worked examples
These are real questions from the Tutorsaurus past tense verbs practice, with the answers worked out.
Example 1
Which word fits the blank?
Last night, we ___ a movie.
Choices: watches, watch, watched
Answer: watched. Watched. Watch plus -ed shows it already happened.
Example 2
Sort the verbs by when they happen.
To sort: walk, walked, go, went, see, saw
Answer: Now: walk, go, see · Past: walked, went, saw. Walk, go, and see are now. Walked, went, and saw are past. Some past words add -ed and some change completely.
Example 3
Is the past-tense verb correct?
Last night she drew a picture.
Answer: Yes. Drew is the past of draw. It is an irregular verb.
Printable worksheet (PDF) — one page of questions from this practice that work on paper, easier ones first, with an answer key on page 2. Free to print, no sign-up.