Select a short newspaper article. Underline all the verbs in the sentence. Copy them onto the left side of a sheet of paper in a column, one word below the other. Use a dictionary to verify the words are verbs.
Draw a vertical line close to the end of the first column. Draw a second vertical line about 1 inch to the right of the first line; label it "Present Tense." Draw another line 1 inch to the right; label it "Past Tense." Draw a fourth line 1 inch to the right; label it "Future Tense."
Examine the first verb you wrote and decide which of the the three tenses it is. Present tense means the action is occurring right now, past tense means that the action occurred at some earlier time, and future tense means the action has not yet occurred but will. For example, if the verb written was "killed," you would identify it as past tense.
Check your decision by inserting the verb into short simple sentences. The words you add to create the sentence should reflect the sense of time, such as "yesterday," "today" or" tomorrow." For example, if you think the verb is past tense, add the words "he" and "yesterday" to create the sentence "He killed yesterday." If you had guessed the verb was in the future tense and tested your guess in the simple sentence "He killed tomorrow," you would notice it does not sound right.
Change the verb to the other two tenses. For example, the verb "killed" is in the past tense. It becomes "kills" or "is killing" for the present tense and "will kill" for the future tense. Insert the various verb forms into sentences to check for correctness. For example, to check the present tense of the verb, you would use the sentence, "he kills today" or "he is killing today." Change to future tense in the sentence "he will kill tomorrow."
Continue to complete the chart you have created with other verbs you identified in the news article. Keep in mind that present tense verbs frequently, end in "s," or begin with the helping verb "is" and end in "ing." Past tense verbs often end with "ed." Future tense verbs usually start with the helping verb "will."