Tenses in YR

[MilestoneMum]

My YR DD gets her tenses in a muddle, saying things like "putted" and "holded".

Is this normal for YR age and will it. just pass when I say it back correctly, or does she need more specific help?

My year 1 DD still does that and I think it's totally normal. You don't need to correct her - she will pick it up from the examples around her. The fact that she says "putted" shows that she has already internalised some basic grammar rules - ie, putting the regular -ed ending on past tense verbs. This is a recognised stage in child language acquisition. The stage before is when they just say what they hear and the stage after is to get it right. So they are likely to first say "I went" and then to say "I goed" and then to go back to "I went". (I am an English teacher.)

Yes, it's normal. My DD1 is in Y1 and says most verbs correctly but still persists in saying 'I've sawn' instead of 'I've seen'. Drives me mad but I know she'll get there in the end.

Very normal!

DD is in Year 2 and still gets the occasional verb incorrect. She often says "I buyed" instead of "bought".

We normally correct her and I also hear friends correcting their children, I personally think it is necessary. We just say "you bought" and leave it.

You don't need to correct her as in don't draw attention to the mistake per se. It's much better to repeat back to her what she has said but modelling the correct tense. Then she gets the correct version in context rather than in isolation. So, if she says " I goed out to play with Sophie." You can repeat " Oh, you went out to play with Sophie today? What did you do?" She gets the example modelled and the conversation flows on naturally.

Mine says "i

"I brang a letter home" no amount of saying brought seems to help!

DD was struggling with this despite me following the modelling method.

I then changed tactics and now say "can you try saying that again" and she will pause (as the cogs turn) and then say the sentence again with the correct tense.

It's the difference between knowing something (because she does know the correct tenses) and just saying something out of habit. This approach seems to be working very well and I think it's because DD is having to think and correct herself, and this reinforces the right word coming out of her mouth.

Of course it may just have happened around now anyway but I definitely noticed a very quick improvement after changing my approach.