Reception baseline assessment

[Maureen24]

Hello. My little one started reception in September and has settled well. The school has been great and he seems to be doing well with phonics, blending and generally enjoying school life. The teacher said the baseline assessment showed that he was below where he should be in terms of tenses and so he will be put into a small focus group to help with this. Does anyone have any experience if this or any advice on how I can help with this at home too, the teacher was a bit surprised and thinks it’s perhaps just because it was with a stranger etc but I have noticed my little one saying ‘goed’ instead of went occasionally. Really pleased he will be getting the support he needs, I just feel like I’ve let him down a bit, grateful for any advice x

I doubt you've let him down, English is a fairly confusing language because it follows multiple rules from the different languages we've acquired throughout the centuries.

I'd just go back to basics and work on modelling the correct sentence back in conversation emphasising the correct tense. 'We goed to the park today'. 'Yes that's right, we went to the park today didn't we. Do you remember we went last week too?' Then if it's still presenting a problem in a few weeks I'd start pointing it out whilst still emphasising the correct use in a light hearted manner. 'Yes we went to the park today. Remember we say went instead of goed? Some words are a bit funny like that aren't they?'

Sounds like a bit of an over-reaction to me? Most 4 year olds muddle tenses. I say this as a Reception teacher.

The Government Baseline doesn't assess their use of tenses so it must be part of their own school Baseline. Personally, I can think of far more important things to assess at this early settling in stage but each to their own.

An intervention isn't something to worry about though. Children will be put into interventions for all sorts of things. It's just a normal part of teaching.

You most definitely haven't failed him. Just make sure you're modeling back correctly, so he's hearing good examples of correct grammar. So if he says "I goed swimming yesterday" repeat back "yes, you went swimming yesterday". He'll get there eventually. Honestly though, it's not something I would be overly concerned about at this age.

I used to run speech and language interventions with small groups in reception. Some things to remember are
Always model.
Repeat what the child says using the correct phrase, as other posters have said.
Repeat the same activity on different occasions. You can vary the activity by introducing some different vocabulary, but don't change all of it at once.

Don't worry about this at all, he will get there, but if you want some ideas, these are a couple of activities I have done to practise the past tense.

I used to play Simon Says, and after two turns I'd stop and ask, "What did you do?"

[Adult] Simon says jump.
Simon says touch your toes.
What did you do?
[Child] I jumped and touched my toes.

I also set up a teddy and various things for teddy to do - apple, cup, pencil and paper, ball, book, car etc. Then (after I'd modelled it) each child had a turn to make Teddy do something and tell us about it, eg, "Teddy ate the apple."

The next step was for the first child to make Teddy do two things and then ask the second child, "What did Teddy do?" Hopefully the second child would reply, "Teddy drank the juice and kicked the ball." Whether they got it right or not, I always repeated the correct version for all the children to hear.

Thank you all so much, this is really helpful! Xxx