Day 13: Irregular Past Tense

Irregular past tense verbs. I know, I know... I'm sure it's a term that you've tried to avoid since middle school grammar class. But, as it turns out, irregular past tense verbs can be a lot of fun—especially if you work in a special education class.


Background info for new readers: I work, as a behavioral aide, in a special education class at a nearby middle school. There are nine students in the class, one girl and eight boys,  ranging in ages from 12-15, all of whom have a diagnosis of Autism. Many of the students have multiple diagnoses. My students are the coolest teenagers on the planet. If you don't believe me, ask them.


Recently, the kids have started working on grammar packets. As a neurotypical (a.k.a. normal and boring) student, I remember hating grammar classes, packets, and activities. So it's no surprise to me that my kiddos—all of whom have language learning disorders of varying degrees—hate them, too.


The most recent assignment was one that focused on past tense verbs. The kiddos were given a list of verbs and asked to provide the past tense form of each. For the majority of the verbs, they were able to provide the accurate past tense form but boy did they come up with some brilliant approximations of past tense forms of irregular verbs. Let's take a look, shall we?

When asked to come up with the past tense form of these words:	My students came up with some surprising variations that include:
Go	Geed, Gooed, Gaw, Goed
Sing	Singded, Sangded
Do	Doed, Dooded
Throw	Threwded
Swim	Swammed, Swammied

I had a hoot correcting these worksheets! For once, grammar was a whole bunch of fun. It was a nice reminder that: A) the English language is wacky and B) the students in my class are brilliant little people who cease to amaze me.


My kiddos and their ingenious brains are what's right in the world.