Pronouncing "ed"

Since English is not pronounced phonetically like languages such as Spanish, for example, without the right tools and visual aides it can be particularly difficult to explain how words should be pronounced, and why. The pronunciation of the Simple Past, and Past Participle of regular verbs and Participial Adjectives are great examples of this.

The question is, how do we pronounce the -ed? The answer is, in 3 ways:

1. /ɪd/
2. /t/
3. /d/

Participial Adjectives such as "aged", and "learned" add an exception and a fourth way to pronounce "ed". For example: take the word blessed. When it is a verb, the pronunciation is (blessed /t/); when it is an adjective as in "blessed be thy name", it is pronounced (blessed /id/)

For a more comprehensive explanation see the attached Google doc.