Reading and Writing Stories
Primary 3 · English
Reading and Writing Stories
Lesson 2 of 3
12 min
On Monday, Gatete stands up to tell the class what happened at his home on Saturday.
"I tie the goat. Then the goat walk into the beans. Then Keza look everywhere."
His teacher smiles. "Gatete, is all of this happening now, here in front of us?"
Of course it is not. It happened on Saturday, and it is finished. Today you learn the little tail that pushes a word into the past.
Look at these two sentences very carefully.
Today I walk to school.
Yesterday I walked to school.
Only one thing changed. The word walk grew a small tail: walk + ed = walked.
That tail carries a message: this is finished. It already happened.
Two more, before we say any rule at all:
Today Keza calls her goat. Yesterday Keza called her goat.
Today Mugisha kicks the ball. Yesterday Mugisha kicked the ball.
Now here is the rule, in one line: for most verbs, add -ed to talk about the past.
| Now | Yesterday |
|---|---|
| look | looked |
| call | called |
| ask | asked |
| help | helped |
| wash | washed |
| play | played |
| jump | jumped |
| open | opened |
Look at close. It already has an e sitting at the end. It does not need a second one! So you add only a d.
close → closed like → liked smile → smiled dance → danced tie → tied
Never write closeed. The e is already there, waiting for you.
Look at stop. It is short, and it ends with one vowel (o) and one consonant (p). For a word like this you double the last letter, and then add -ed.
stop → stopped drop → dropped clap → clapped hug → hugged
Say stoped out loud and it sounds like "stow-ped". The double p keeps the o short and hard.
Look at carry. Just before the y there is an r, and r is a consonant. So the y turns into an i, and then you add -ed.
carry → carried cry → cried hurry → hurried try → tried
But be careful with play. Just before its y there is an a, and a is a vowel. So the y stays exactly where it is: played. Never plaied.
Say these out loud: walked (it hisses, like a t), called (it buzzes, like a d), wanted (you can hear an extra beat).
Three different sounds — but now look at the spelling. All three end in -ed. Your ear can play tricks on you. The tail never changes.
A few very busy verbs refuse to take the tail. They change shape completely, and you simply have to learn them by heart. These are the ones you meet most often:
| Now | Yesterday |
|---|---|
| go | went |
| eat | ate |
| see | saw |
| run | ran |
| take | took |
| come | came |
| say | said |
| find | found |
| lose | lost |
| is / am | was |
Never write goed, eated or runned. Say went, ate, ran.
Telling what happened is not only about the verbs. The events must come in the right order, or nobody will follow you.
Use the order words: First, Then, After that, Finally.
Here is The Lost Goat, retold in four sentences. Watch every single verb.
First, Keza tied her goat near the banana trees. Then she helped her mother wash the plates. After that, she looked everywhere and called her goat. Finally, Gatete found Nyampinga in the bean garden.
tied, helped, looked, called — four verbs, and every one of them took the tail. Only found is a wild verb (find → found).
A whole story, retold in four sentences. Now you can do it with your own day.
Tip
-ed is the tail of something finished
Before you speak, ask yourself one small question: is it happening now, or is it over?
If it is over, give the verb its tail. Yesterday I washed. Yesterday I played. Yesterday I helped.
Today I wash the plates. Yesterday I ___ the plates.
Today Uwase closes the door. Yesterday Uwase ___ the door.
Today the bus stops at the market. Yesterday the bus ___ at the market.
Today Mutesi carries the water. Yesterday Mutesi ___ the water.
Fix this sentence: Yesterday I goed to school and I eated my lunch.
washed. Most verbs simply take the tail: wash + ed.
closed. Close already ends in e, so you add only a d. Never closeed.
stopped. Stop is a short word ending in one vowel and one consonant, so you double the p first: stop → stopp → stopped.
carried. There is a consonant (r) before the y, so the y becomes an i: carry → carri → carried.
Yesterday I went to school and I ate my lunch. Go and eat are wild verbs. They never take the tail, so goed and eated are not English words at all.
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