Passive Voice Transformation
Transform active sentences into passive voice using picture pairs.
Session summary (SOAP)
Stays on this screen. Nothing is saved or sent.
Mark a card Correct, Correct with cue or Incorrect and the summary writes itself here.
How to run it
Ask who did it after every passive sentence. Comprehension is the real target — students meet passives constantly in textbooks and misread who acted — and producing them is secondary. Cover the passive version and let the student build it, then check. The wind blew and lightning split are the two with irregular past participles — blown, split — and are worth doing last.
Cueing ladder
Start at the top. Add support one step at a time.
- IndependentPresent the item and wait 5 seconds of quiet before helping.Log as correct
- HintStress the part of the sentence that changes, or point to the word ending.Log as cued
- Sentence starterSay the first half of the sentence and let the student finish it.Log as cued
- ModelSay the correct form in the whole sentence; the student repeats it.Log as cued
Adjust it
Give a sentence starter every time, and do fewer cards.
Ask for a new sentence of the student's own with the same form, with no card to lean on.
Matching IEP goal
Given sentence cards, Student will produce the target grammatical form in sentences in 8 of 10 opportunities across 3 consecutive sessions, given no more than an indirect cue.
Send it home through the parent portal →About this activity
Ten sentences shown active and passive: the dog chased the ball becomes the ball was chased by the dog; mom baked the cake becomes the cake was baked by mom; the wind blew the leaves becomes the leaves were blown by the wind; lightning split the tree becomes the tree was split by lightning. The transformation moves the object to the front, which is what makes passives hard to understand as well as to produce.
What to listen for
Listen for reversed agents in comprehension. A student who reads the ball was chased by the dog and says the ball chased the dog has taken the first noun as the actor, which is the default strategy and the reason passives cause comprehension failures. Watch the past participle, which is where production errors cluster: was blew rather than was blown.
Carrying it home
Passives are everywhere in written instructions and news. Asking who did it, when a passive comes up, is a five-second comprehension check with real transfer.
What's in this activity
- The dog chased the ball. → The ball was chased by the dog.
- The boy kicked the ball. → The ball was kicked by the boy.
- The teacher read the book. → The book was read by the teacher.
- The cat scratched the chair. → The chair was scratched by the cat.
- Mom baked the cake. → The cake was baked by Mom.
- The wind blew the leaves. → The leaves were blown by the wind.
- The police caught the thief. → The thief was caught by the police.
- A truck delivered the package. → The package was delivered by a truck.
- The students painted the mural. → The mural was painted by the students.
- Lightning split the tree. → The tree was split by lightning.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Fourth through seventh, where passives appear regularly in academic text.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all ten pairs play with no account.
- Should students produce passives or just understand them?
- Understanding is the priority. Passives are common in textbooks and rare in speech, so comprehension has the higher return — production practice mainly serves to make the structure visible.
Use this board with your caseload
With a free account, every correct, cued and incorrect mark is saved to the student and scored against their IEP goal, with the data written up for you. Assign it as home practice through the parent portal.
Track progress freeFree for SLPs. No card, no trial clock.