Standard 5: Language

Students will apply knowledge of grammar and rhetorical style to reading and writing.

For additional guidance, there is a Grammar Companion Guide on page 8 of the Support Documents.

3.5.R.2 Students will recognize irregular and past participle verbs and verb tense to identify settings, times, and sequences in text.

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will understand what irregular and past participle verbs are and recognize them in text (sentence or full text).

• Students will recognize verb tense (past, present and future).

• Students will use verb tense to identify settings, times, and sequences in text. 

Supporting Resources 

Teacher Insights 

Participles (webpage)

Regular verbs (webpage)

Grammar Companion Guide, page 92.

• Verbs express an action or state of being.

• There are three types of verbs: Action verbs, Linking verbs, Helping verbs

• Regular verbs form their different tenses according to an established pattern.

• Irregular verbs don’t follow an established rule or pattern.

• Some irregular verbs follow patterns, such as drink–drank, spring–sprang, know-knew, and blow-blew, but those patterns cannot be used with predictability.

• Participles come in two varieties: past and present. All present participle verbs end in -ing.

• Past Participles show something that started in the past, but continues into the present.

• The past participles of all regular verbs end in -ed.

• Some verbs require a minor change in the ending before adding -ed. (i.e. drop → dropped)

• The past participle, if used as a verb phrase, should always be used with one or more helping verbs (also known as auxiliary verbs).

• Ex: Sarah had cheated on her weekly spelling test for a month.

• When learning verb tense, have students identify verb tense used in the passage as it relates to settings, times, and sequences in text.  

• Certain words or phrases may indicate time. For example, yesterday would suggest past tense.

• In addition, help students to identify helping verbs that indicate past or future tense.

• They had filled the orders before we arrived.

• The helping verb had indicates past tense.

• We will fill the order as soon as possible.

•  The helping verbs shall and will work with verbs to indicate future time. 

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.