About this activity
Twelve sentences requiring the third person singular -s: he runs every morning; she eats an apple; the dog jumps on the couch; my brother sings in the car; it rains a lot in April; the cat sleeps all day; mom drives to work; the baby claps her hands. The marker is one small sound at the end of a verb and it is one of the later of Brown's fourteen grammatical morphemes to stabilise, which is part of why it is still missing in school-age children.
How to use it in a session
Ask what the person does rather than reading the sentence. What does the dog do, answered with the dog jumps, produces the marker; reading it aloud does not. Contrast with plural subjects where you can — the dog jumps and the dogs jump — since the marker moves from the verb to the noun and back, which is the confusing part. Eight minutes covers the twelve.
What to listen for
Listen for omission, which is the usual pattern rather than incorrect addition. He run every morning is a normal developmental stage and also a regular feature of several English dialects, so the family's speech matters before calling it an error. Watch the ending's sound: runs ends in a /z/, eats in an /s/, and the student is producing whichever the preceding sound requires without knowing it.
Carrying it home
Recasting is the method. When a child says he run fast, saying yes, he runs very fast supplies the form in a real sentence without stopping the conversation.
Questions
- What ages is this for?
- Kindergarten through third grade, and older students learning English as an additional language.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all twelve sentences play with no account.
- Is omitting the -s always an error?
- No. It is a normal developmental stage and a systematic feature of several English dialects, so it is worth knowing how the child's family and community speak before deciding it needs work.