I have a nine year old pupil in my class, she is fine with the ordinary past tense verbs but does not remember to use the irregular ones. She still says ‘buyed’, ‘goed’, ‘bringed’. Should I correct her?

Hi Martha,

Yes, irregular verbs are one of those things in our language that don't really make sense, but we just kind of learn them as we grow up. By the age of 4 years, I would expect most children to be using at least a few irregular verbs correctly.

Is this part of a general language delay that the girl has? If so it is important to involve a speech and language therapist and put in place a language program.


I would not "correct" her as such, but maybe just model back the correct language. For instance:

Girl: "He buyed some new shoes"
Teacher: "Yes, he bought some new shoes"

This way the girl is not humiliated in front of the other pupils, but is hearing a correct model of the sentence.

It is probably worth just setting some simple homework tasks relating irregular verbs. These are easy to set up.
Just write some sentences and leave a blank space for the child to fill in e.g.:

Today I am going to buy some new trousers, yesterday I _________ some new shoes.


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