This lesson plan, Learning About Words: The Sounds of -ed teaches first graders the three different
ending sounds the -ed verbs can make. Some end in the D sound, in the word "walked," the ed sound
like in the word "painted," or the T sound in the word 'looked." Using a prewritten letter about the
previous day, children will identify all the past tense verbs by circling them. When all of the past tense
verbs have been circled, kids will read each verb aloud and list them by their ending sound.
Understanding verb tenses is an essential skill to becoming strong writers and mastering English
grammar.
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to recognize the three different ending sounds of verbs using the past tense -ed.
Introduction (5 minutes)
Gather students together for the start of lesson.
Review what a verb is and explain what makes a verb special. For example you might say, “Verbs are our
action words and represent the things we do, such as run, eat, or walk.”
Remind your students of the difference between past and present by writing an example on the board
such as, I walk to school, I walked to school.
Tell your class that today they will be practicing how to recognize the three different sounds that past
tense verbs can have when they end in -ed.
Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling (15 minutes)
Point to the letter written on the chart paper or whiteboard and read it aloud to your students.
Ask for volunteers to come up and circle the past tense verbs in the letter.
When all of the past tense verbs have been circled, ask students to read each verb aloud with you and to
notice the ending sound.
Explain that while all of the words end in -ed, they have a different ending sound. Say, “Some past tense
verbs end in the 'd' sound, like in the word 'walked,' or the 'ed' sound like in the word 'painted.' Or they
end in the 't' sound like in the word 'looked,' although they are all spelled '-ed'.”
As you go over each word, write it on the board under the headings (t, d, -ed) to follow the sound you
hear.
Take a moment to explain to your students that sometimes past tense verbs don’t follow the -ed rule.
You can explain that some verbs are irregular, or follow a different pattern. For example, sing becomes
sang, not singed, and run becomes ran, not runned. You can tell students that one way to tell if a verb
follows the irregular pattern is to say the word aloud with an -ed at the end to hear how it sounds.
Guided Practice (10 minutes)
Erase the whiteboard and/or get a clean sheet of chart paper titled “Yesterday I…”
Ask students to think of something they did after school yesterday (in the past). Have them turn and talk
to a partner to share what they did.
Write an example sentence of something you did after school (ex. I cooked a delicious meal) on the
board.
Ask for several student volunteers to share what they did after school. Write each action on the board
as a sentence, ex. I... making sure to include the past tense in the sentence.
Ask for volunteers to come up and circle each past tense verb with a different colored marker (red for
the sound of t, blue for ed, etc).
Remind students of the irregular past tense verbs.
Explain to students that they will now get to practice sorting past tense verbs by their different ending
sounds.
Independent working time (15 minutes)
Go over the What Does -ed Say? worksheet instructions with the class and send them to work
independently.
Circulate around the room and offer support as needed.
Differentiation
Support
Gather students who need additional support into a small group. Write the three sounds of ed (t, ed, d)
on chart and cut out the past tense verb cards from the worksheet. Support students to sort the cards
by their sound.
Enrichment
For additional practice for students who quickly finish the practice worksheet and/or need a more
challenging activity, have students go on a past tense verb word hunt using books in the classroom
library. See if students can identify sort the words by their ending sound.
Assessment (5 minutes)
Ask students to share their worksheet with a partner to check their work.
Collect the worksheet and assess whether students were able to correctly sort each past tense verb by
the ending sound.
Review and closing (5 minutes)
Ask students to return to the rug with their worksheets.
Review as a whole class by writing a past tense verb on the board, and having students say the word
aloud and tell you what the end sound of the word is (ed, d, t).
Discuss student questions as needed.