Many children with language delays have difficulty using the past tense of verbs. If they want to talk about something that already happened, they will use the present tense or may mis-form the word to create regular/simple past tense or irregular past tense. This can make it difficult to tell when a child is talking about something in the past or something they want to do right now. Here are the steps for how to teach past tense verbs to a child in speech therapy, in the classroom, or at home.

We can use speech therapy activities and exercises to systematically teach a child to use past tense verbs correctly. Watch the video below and follow the steps to past tense verb success! (Or, take the short cut and grab our pre-made verb curriculums here)

Just as when we are teaching other grammatical markers, we need to focus on one thing at a time.  The first thing you must do is decide whether or not you need to teach regular past tense verbs (past simple) or irregular past tense verbs first. You really do need to pick one at a time as it can be confusing to target them all at once. Start with regular past tense verbs and once the child has a good handle on those, then you can move to the irregular ones.

The easiest way to teach past tense verbs is to have a collection of pictures that include before and after pictures of the same scene. These will give you a prompt for asking the question “what happened”. The examples below are from our Grammar/Syntax Curriculum. But you can also look around and see what you already have.

Once you have chosen present/past tense and you have collected your pictures, it’s time to teach past tense verbs using actions that have just happened (as opposed to something that happened a while ago).  Show the child one of your before pictures and describe what happened. Then, show the child the second picture and say “what happened?”  The child should be able to describe the action that was performed, even if he doesn’t know how to use the past tense yet. If not, you may want to go back and work on labeling actions before you work on the past tense of them. Model the correct past tense use of the word the child just provided and tell him that since it’s something that already happened, you have to change the word. Here’s how that might sound during the activity:

• Look, she is running! (Show second picture) Oh no! What happened?
• Child: Fall down!
• You’re right, she fell. Listen, that’s something that already happened, so we’re going to change it. Instead of “fall”, we’re going to say “fell”. Listen, she fell.
• Child: She fell.

Keep doing this activity until the child can appropriately use the past tense to talk about the actions that are represented.

Once the child understands the basics of how to change a verb to create the past tense, it’s time to use the past tense to retell past events.  These would be events that happened more than a few minutes ago.  Ask the child to talk about past events like recess, birthday parties, going on a trip, or event from his day. While he’s doing this, make sure he’s using the past tense. If he forgets, you can use the same cues as you did in step three by telling him that it’s something that already happened so we have to change the word. Keep doing this until the child can recall past events using the correct past tense verbs.

Now that the child is able to use past tense when describing pictures and when recalling past events, the only thing left is everyday conversation. Whenever you hear the child incorrectly use the past tense in conversation, help remind her in the same way you did in the other steps. Eventually, she’ll be able to do this on her own and not need reminders from you anymore.

Improving grammar and syntax skills takes more than a one-off activity.

That’s why we’ve created a full curriculum to teach grammar and syntax skills, including past tense verbs!

Grab a subscription to our SLK Curriculum and get access to the Grammar/Syntax Curriculum along with all of our other courses, resources, and AI-Powered Material Generators.