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When you have a list of about 20 word pairs, you are ready to move on to the next step.
Now it’s time to teach each of these word pairs to your child. You can explain any rules that you see, such as changing an “f” at the end of the word to a “v” but since there are very few such rules about these words, you will need to teach most pairs directly.
Show your child the list of words or the picture flashcards that you have created. Explain to him that most of the time when we want to say that there is more than one of something, we add an –s to the word. Then explain to him that these words are different and that they must change when there is more than one.
Go over the list with him to show him what you mean. You can say “when there is one of these, we call it a foot. But when you talk about two of them, we say ‘feet’”. Then, tell your child it’s his turn to practice. Try some of these activities to see what works best for your child:
- Straight drill and practice: Say a singular word to your child and ask him what the plural pair is. For example, you say “foot” and your child should say “feet”. Just do this over and over again.
- For a little more fun, you can play memory. Turn over all of the picture flashcards and have your child turn over two cards. Have your child tell you what’s on each card. Make sure he uses the correct irregular plural nouns on those that need it. If the two words match (are from the same pair), then he gets to keep them. See which of you can get the most matches.
Now that your child knows the irregular plural nouns, it’s time for him to start using them in sentences. Show your child a pair of words from the last step. Tell your child that you will need to create a sentence using both of those words. You can get him started with a sentence like “I see one foot and two feet.”
Have him repeat the sentence back to you with the correct irregular plural noun. Then, show him another pair and have him say the same sentence but now with this pair of words. Once he gets the hang of it, see if he can come up with some more creative sentences, like “I fed the monster one cactus and he spit out two cacti”.
The only thing left is for your child to start using the correct irregular plural nouns in conversation. Start paying attention to how your child is saying these words in conversational speech. Chances are, he’s still using the incorrect word when he’s not focusing on it like when you practice with the flash cards and that’s ok! S
tart by correcting those irregular plural nouns about 10% of the time when you hear them in conversation. This means you’re not correcting him all the time (that would drive him nuts) but you’re slowly beginning to bring his awareness to the fact that he needs to be saying those correctly in conversation.
Gradually, increase the percentage of his irregular plural noun errors that you hear. As your percentage increases, his accuracy should also increase. Ease into this so that by the time you’re correcting him 90-100% of the time, he’s already doing it most of the time anyway so there aren’t many errors for you to correct. Make sure you correct him in a gentle manner so that he doesn’t feel like you’re picking on him.
