What are some common irregular verbs for elementary students?

Some of the most common irregular verbs children see are "go/went," "do/did," "have/had," "make/made," "see/saw," "come/came," "say/said," and "take/took." These appear often in early readers and in everyday speech.

How can I help my child practice irregular verbs at home?

You can read short stories together and pause to notice verbs like "went," "saw," or "made." Turn it into a quick game by asking, "What is this verb now? What was it yesterday?" For example, "go" and "went," or "eat" and "ate." Short writing prompts about "yesterday" can also give practice.

What is the difference between a regular and an irregular verb?

A regular verb makes its past tense by adding -ed, such as "walk" to "walked" or "play" to "played." An irregular verb does not follow that pattern and changes in a different way, such as "run" to "ran" or "buy" to "bought."

What Is an Irregular Verb? Definition and Examples

Q: How do you explain an irregular verb to a child?

Explain that most verbs make the past tense by adding -ed, like "jump" to "jumped." An irregular verb is a verb that changes in a different way, like "go" to "went" or "see" to "saw." These are special words that need to be memorized.

Irregular verb explained for kids

Most verbs make the past tense by adding -ed, like "walk" to "walked." An irregular verb is a verb that changes in a different way. For example, "go" changes to "went" and "eat" changes to "ate." These verbs are special and need to be remembered.

Worked examples with irregular verbs

Example 1 (younger grades):

Sentence now: "I go to the park." This is present tense, which means it is happening now.

Change it to yesterday: "Yesterday, I went to the park." The verb "go" is an irregular verb, so the past tense is "went," not "goed."

Example 2 (upper elementary):

Start with the verb "to eat."

Present tense: "They eat lunch at school."
Simple past tense: "Yesterday, they ate lunch at school."
Past participle used with "have": "They have eaten lunch already."

"Eat," "ate," and "eaten" are all forms of the same irregular verb.

Going deeper with irregular verbs

In the early grades, your child mostly needs to recognize and use the simple past tense of common irregular verbs in speaking and writing. Words like "went," "saw," "had," and "made" appear often in stories and directions.

By the upper end of elementary school, students start to work more with verb phrases that use helping verbs, such as "have," "has," and "had." This is where the past participle form of irregular verbs matters, as in "has gone" or "had written." Understanding irregular verbs helps your child keep verb tenses consistent in longer sentences and paragraphs.

Irregular verbs also connect to other grammar ideas, such as how verbs work inside a clause and how verb tense can show time, similar to what happens in the future tense.

Common mistakes with irregular verbs

Using a regular -ed ending on an irregular verb: A child might say "She runned fast" instead of "She ran fast." Correction: Remind your child that "run" is irregular and its past tense is "ran," not "runned."
Mixing past tense and past participle forms: A child might write "I have went to the store" instead of "I have gone to the store." Correction: Explain that "went" is simple past and "gone" is the form that goes with "have" or "has."
Switching tenses in the same sentence: A child might write "Yesterday we go to the game and played" instead of "Yesterday we went to the game and played." Correction: Point out that if the time word is in the past ("yesterday"), all the verbs in that sentence should be in the past tense.

How irregular verbs show up in everyday life

Your child hears irregular verbs all the time in daily conversations and stories. Phrases like "I did my homework," "We went to the store," or "They made a cake" all use irregular verbs. Noticing how these sound in real life can help your child remember the correct forms when reading and writing.

Related grammar terms to explore

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What is an irregular verb?