Irregular past tense forms (ran, wrote, brought), past participles used with have/had (has written), and contractions such as they're and could've read as verb forms, with awareness of the conditional (would).
Where your child meets this in real life: Writing and speaking accurately about the past, the verb forms most often tested in the SEAG grammar exercise
SEAGReady breaks irregular verbs and trickier tenses into 3 steps, taught in order so each skill builds on the last.
Use the correct irregular past tense form (run → ran, write → wrote, bring → brought) instead of wrongly adding -ed.
Choose the past participle after have, has or had (has written, had run), the second past form that many irregular verbs have.
Expand contractions such as they're, won't and could've into their full verb forms, and recognise conditional forms with 'would', knowing that 've always means 'have', never 'of'.
Three free sample questions from our irregular verbs and trickier tenses course. Every question comes with a full explanation, and hints that guide without giving the answer away.
Which option shows the correct past tense of 'to bring'?
Answer: E. brought
'Bring' is an irregular verb, so the -ed rule does not apply. Its past tense changes the whole word: bring → brought. 'Yesterday I brought my lunch to school' sounds right; 'bringed', 'brang' and 'brung' are never correct in written English.
Stuck? Start here: 'Bring' is an irregular verb, it does NOT take the -ed ending.
Which word completes this sentence correctly? 'Rebecca has ___ all her homework already.'
Answer: E. done
The helper word 'has' sits before the gap, so the verb needs its past participle. 'Do' has two past forms: 'did' (on its own) and 'done' (after have/has/had). 'Rebecca has done all her homework' is correct, never 'has did'.
Stuck? Start here: The helper word 'has' comes before the gap, that changes which verb form you need.
What is 'could've' short for?
Answer: A. could have
In a contraction, the apostrophe replaces missing letters. The 've is a squashed 'have', so could've = could have. It sounds like 'could of' when spoken, but 'of' is not a verb, could've, would've and should've all hide the word 'have'.
Stuck? Start here: The apostrophe in a contraction marks missing letters.
This is the exact interactive worked example your child sees in SEAGReady. Step through it and watch the method build up.
Complete this sentence: 'Yesterday Seamus ___ all the way to the bus stop.' The options are: run, runned, ran, running, runs.
Which form of the verb 'run' completes the sentence correctly?
Step 1 of 3
Complete this sentence: 'Yesterday Seamus ___ all the way to the bus stop.' The options are: run, runned, ran, running, runs.
Which form of the verb 'run' completes the sentence correctly?
'Ran' is the irregular past tense of 'run': 'Yesterday Seamus ran all the way to the bus stop.'
The key insight: Irregular verbs change their whole shape in the past instead of taking -ed: run → ran, write → wrote, bring → brought.
Watch out: Choosing 'runned'. The -ed rule only works for regular verbs. Irregular verbs have their own past forms that must be learned: ran, wrote, brought, went.
These are the misconceptions we see most often in irregular verbs and trickier tenses, including the ones our practice questions are specifically designed to catch.
Struggling with irregular verbs and trickier tenses? The real gap is often in one of these earlier topics.
SEAGReady finds the exact step where your child gets stuck, teaches it with worked examples like the one above, and brings it back for review so it sticks.
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