Second Grade English: Irregular Past Tense Verbs (went, saw, ate, ran, came)

While most verbs in English form their past tense smoothly by adding -ed (such as walked, played, and jumped), many of our most common, everyday action verbs refuse to follow this rule. These special verbs are called irregular past tense verbs. Instead of adding -ed, their vowel sounds mutate, their spellings transform completely, or they change into entirely different words! In this chapter, you will master second grade's most famous irregular past tense verbs including went, saw, ate, ran, and came explore why they change, and banish common mistakes like "goed" or "eated" forever.

What Is an Irregular Past Tense Verb?

An irregular past tense verb is a verb that does not add -ed to show that an action was completed in the past.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|                  REGULAR VS. IRREGULAR PAST TENSE               |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                                 |
|   REGULAR VERB:     walk   +   -ed   =   walked                 |
|                     (Base verb remains completely intact!)      |
|                                                                 |
|   IRREGULAR VERB:   go     ------>   WENT                       |
|                     see    ------>   SAW                        |
|                     eat    ------>   ATE                        |
|                     run    ------>   RAN                        |
|                     come   ------>   CAME                       |
|                                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+

The Ghost of Old English

Why do these rebel verbs exist? Like silent letters, irregular past tense verbs are ancient survivors from Old English spoken over a thousand years ago. Because people used words like go, eat, and see hundreds of times every day, their unique historic forms resisted being smoothed over into regular -ed words.

The Big Five Irregular Past Verbs of Second Grade

These five verbs appear in almost every chapter book and narrative story you will read.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|                  THE BIG FIVE IRREGULAR PAST VERBS              |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Present Tense (Today) | Past Tense (Yesterday) | Never Say!    |
+------------------------+------------------------+---------------+
|  go / goes             | went                   | "goed"        |
|  see / sees            | saw                    | "seed"        |
|  eat / eats            | ate                    | "eated"       |
|  run / runs            | ran                    | "runned"      |
|  come / comes          | came                   | "comed"       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+

1. Go becomes Went

The present-tense verb go undergoes the most dramatic change in the entire language. Its past tense is went! Today I go to the library. Yesterday I went to the library.

2. See becomes Saw

The verb see changes its double 'e' into the phonics team aw: Today I see three bluebirds. Yesterday I saw three bluebirds.

3. Eat becomes Ate

The verb eat rearranges its letters into a CVCe magic 'e' word: ate! Today I eat crisp apples. Yesterday I ate crisp apples.

4. Run becomes Ran

The short 'u' in run shifts to a short 'a' in ran: Today the puppy runs across the lawn. Yesterday the puppy ran across the lawn.

5. Come becomes Came

The short 'o' sound in come shifts to the long 'a' magic 'e' sound in came: Today my cousins come over to play. Yesterday my cousins came over to play.

More Essential Irregular Past Tense Verbs

Here is a helpful directory of other common irregular verbs you will use in your writing.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|                 ADDITIONAL COMMON IRREGULAR VERBS               |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Present Tense | Past Tense Form | Example Sentence             |
+----------------+-----------------+------------------------------+
|  give          | gave            | She gave me a warm smile.    |
|  take          | took            | He took the book off shelf.  |
|  make          | made            | We made a tall block tower.  |
|  say           | said            | "Hello," said the friendly boy|
|  find          | found           | I found a shiny silver coin. |
|  write         | wrote           | Leo wrote a thrilling story. |
|  sing          | sang            | The choir sang beautifully.  |
|  swim          | swam            | We swam in the cool lake.    |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+

Practice Exercises

Exercise 1: Rewrite each sentence, changing the present-tense verb into its correct irregular past-tense form: "We go to the park on Saturdays." "I see a shooting star in the night sky." "The hungry lion eats dinner at twilight." "They run around the track."

Exercise 2: Identify and correct the two incorrect past-tense verb errors in this sentence: "Yesterday, Maya comed to my house and we eated sweet watermelon slices."

Exercise Solutions

Solution to Exercise 1: The rewritten past-tense sentences are: "We went to the park on Saturdays." "I saw a shooting star in the night sky." "The hungry lion ate dinner at twilight." "They ran around the track."

Solution to Exercise 2: The errors are comed and eated. The corrected sentence reads: "Yesterday, Maya came to my house and we ate sweet watermelon slices."