Most people learn the past tense form of regular verbs and the pronunciation rules without needing to be taught about them. However, people learning English as an additional language and/or people with developmental language disorders sometimes don’t pick up these patterns automatically.

In simple terms:

• “ed” is pronounced as /t/ when the sound before it is made without using your voice, e.g. if the base verb ends in an unvoiced sound like /p, s/ or /k/;
• “ed” is pronounced as /d/ when the sound before it is made with your voice “on”, e.g. if the base verb ends in an voiced sound like /b, z/ or /g/; and
• “ed” is pronounced as “ed” (unstressed /əd/) when the sound before it is /d/ or /t/ e.g. “dented”, “needed”, “shouted,” and “wanted”.

As is almost always the case with English, there are some exceptions! Sometimes words ended in /t/ and /d/ do NOT take /əd/ in past tense form.

This 27-page no-preparation Pack 6 is designed to provide people with structured practice of some of the most high frequency exceptions to the /t/ and /d/ rule: shut, hit, held, put, bid, wet, bet, burst, cut, let, hurt.