Tattling vs Telling Picture Cards and Social Story

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 29 pages

• 3 short social stories that work through tattling vs. telling: A Small Thing I Can Handle; When Someone Is Hurt, I Tell; Stop and Ask: Tattling or Telling? — 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 "repeated question and picture" note card, 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, which story first, 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 two pictures from that story, a practiced-the-question-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 a team's own wording if it has any
• 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

A concrete picture story that teaches the difference itself: tattling is reporting something small to get someone else in trouble, telling is reporting something that needs an adult, and the skill is knowing which is which. All three stories ask the exact same question — "is someone hurt or unsafe, or is this something small?" — and the student watches it reach a different answer each time: handle it myself, find an adult, or work it out for a gray-area case. No "you were wrong to want to tell" anywhere; the first story's own point is that checking and deciding "I can handle this" is itself doing it right.

The Stories

• A Small Thing I Can Handle — crayon, sad, stop, calm, crayon, happy
• When Someone Is Hurt, I Tell — hurt, sad, stop, adult, speech, happy
• Stop and Ask: Tattling or Telling? — speech, sad, stop, calm, adult, happy

Six sentences each, one thing per sentence, in the first person and the present tense. Story 1: a classmate takes a crayon, the student wants to tell right away, stops to ask the question, finds no one is hurt, and handles it alone. Story 2: a classmate falls and is hurt, the student stops, asks the same question, and this time the answer is to find an adult — and telling here is the right thing to do, not a bad thing. Story 3: an unclear moment (a classmate who does not want to play that day), the same question, and a "handle it today, tell if it becomes a pattern" answer. The third sentence of every story is the identical question on purpose — three different answers to the one thing a student actually needs to practice. Every picture is a concrete object or person a young child can name in one word — a crayon, a bandage, a stop sign, a speech balloon, an adult figure — never a drawn judgment about anyone's behavior.

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 small complaint and a needs-an-adult moment each look like, 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; 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 telling-worthy example is a plain physical injury, kept deliberately concrete, and no scenario names or defines any policy category.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers, paraprofessionals and general education teachers who read a short story with a student learning when to handle something alone and when to find an adult, 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

Part of the Visual Supports Collection, alongside Social Story: It's OK to Make a Mistake, Social Story: Asking for Help, Social Stories: Good Sportsmanship and Flexible Thinking Picture Cards and Social Story; more picture sets are being added to the collection regularly, all on the same pictures-plus-data shape.

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