Active Listening Picture Cards and Practice Sequence

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 29 pages

• 3 short picture stories about three listening moments: Listening in a Lesson; Listening to a Classmate; Listening to a Read-Aloud — 6 plain, present-tense sentences each (18 in all), with a picture beside every sentence and a type-in name line
• Every story twice: a full-color set and a black-and-white ink-saver set for the photocopier
• Pocket story strips: each story's 6 pictures as numbered cut-apart cards (18 cards per set, in color and in ink-saver), for a pocket, a keyring or a desk, plus a "a note on the repeated picture" card (why one picture repeats within a single story), a "four quick ways to use a strip" card and a printing/cutting tip card
• A write-your-own story page: 6 numbered panels, each with a draw-or-glue picture box and two type-in sentence lines
• 3 practice pages, one per story: three "what can I do?" moments from that story with a type-in answer and a Y/N box, a Monday-to-Friday "I read the story / I did what the story says" strip, six put-the-story-in-order slots for the strip cards, three things to try with an adult, and lines for the student's own words
• A how-to page: before the first read, reading a story the same way every time, what "listening" looks like for this student and what the team decides, the practice pages, what counts on the log, the strips and the blank page, what the stories are and are not, sending home and handing off
• A Story and Moments Log (16 rows: date, story read, read by, moments seen, used it, initials)
• A weekly roll-up (8 weeks: story, days read, moments seen, used it, percent, notes) with a percent-of-moments graph
• A filled example — an invented student, one week on the log and three weeks on the roll-up, every percent re-counted from its own row
• A family page naming the story of the week, with a picture from that story, a practiced-at-home table and lines for what happened at home
• A hand-off page so a paraprofessional, a coach or another classroom reads the same story the same way, with a blank line for what "listening" means for this student if the team has decided
• A phrase bank for writing a new story: 24 starters in 6 groups (opening lines, what I can do, why it helps me, closing lines, writing the log and roll-up, the family page and hand-off) plus a 4-point check before a new story is printed
• A storage and binder label sheet: 11 labels (one per story, with its pictures, plus 8 plain section labels) and a spine strip
• Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, and a "what's next" back page

The Stories

• Listening in a Lesson — chair, adult, look, listen, calm, happy
• Listening to a Classmate — talk, look, listen, calm, talk, happy
• Listening to a Read-Aloud — chair, read, look, listen, calm, happy

Six sentences each, one thing per sentence, in the first person and the present tense: the setting (a lesson, a classmate talking, a read-aloud), looking at the speaker, listening with the ears, trying to keep a calm body facing them, and feeling happy afterward. Every picture is a concrete object or figure a young child can name in one word — a chair, an adult, a speech balloon, a book, a pair of eyes, an ear, a calm face — never a drawn judgment about the student. Every sentence is framed as something the student TRIES to do, never a requirement; the how-to page says plainly that some students cannot or should not be asked to make eye contact, and what "listening" looks like for an individual student is the team's own decision.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: type into the story name lines, the practice pages, the blank story, the log, the roll-up, the family page and the hand-off page, or print and use a pen. The story and strip pages print on cardstock or plain paper; strips cut along dashed lines. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document.

It tells a student, in pictures, what a listening moment can look like and gives one way to practice it, and counts what happened. It is not a behavior plan or any other legal or clinical procedure, and it promises no outcome. It carries no prompt hierarchy, fading schedule or mastery rule, and it does not require eye contact or any one body position from every student. Which story a student reads first, for how many days, and when the next one starts are your team's decisions. The goal line and the criterion field are blanks for your district's own wording and your team's own number. The log counts two things: whether the story was read, and in how many of the day's moments the student did what the story says.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers, paraprofessionals and general education teachers who read a short story with a student about a lesson, a one-on-one conversation, or a read-aloud, case managers who need that reading to show up as data, and the families who get the home page sent home.

More In The Collection

Pictures (color pages): Noto Emoji by Google, Apache License 2.0. Pictures (ink-saver pages): Fluent Emoji, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, MIT License.