What Is Happening? Picture Cards

About this resource

A picture card that asks the question. Every card in this deck carries the same printed question, "What is happening?", under a big picture of someone caught in the act, so a child who cannot yet read a word list still has something to look at and answers in their own words: a word, a phrase or a sentence. The question is worded so it makes no assumption about who is in the picture. This first set covers the WHAT question only.

WHAT IS INCLUDED -- 19 pages, 378 type-in fields

Picture Cards

• 16 picture cards in full color, each a big cut-apart piece laid edge to edge in a 4-across, 4-down grid so cutting is three straight cuts across and three down -- run, walk, swim, dance, climb, sleep, cook, clap, hug, cry, ski, sing, write, ride, sit, wave
• The same 16 cut pieces again as an ink-saver set in pure black outlines, for the photocopier
• A note on the card pages naming the 7 pictures a child may name another way (sleep, cook, sing, write, ride, sit, wave), so you can decide once how that answer is marked

Probe And Track

• 3 quick picture probe forms (A, B, C), 8 pictures each, with a + / - / ~ mark for every picture and a line to write the child's answers word for word. Forms A and B split the 16-picture bank with no overlap; Form C re-mixes 8 of the same pictures in a new order
• Full-Deck Probe -- all 16 pictures on one sheet, a mark for each and a line for what the child said, word for word
• Data Log -- 17 rows: date, form, correct, out of, percent, notes
• Percent Graph -- 14 probes across, 0-100 percent grid, a field for the team's own criterion
• Caseload Summary -- 16 rows: student, last form given, baseline, current, trend, decision

Share And Write

• Practice at Home -- a family update built from six of the same pictures used in session, a weekly practice table, and lines for the questions a family heard outside of practice time
• Phrase Bank -- 20 observable-language starters across 5 groups (accuracy, what was said, carryover, the log and graph, the caseload page)
• Filled Example -- an invented student, eight probes, every percent re-counted from its own row

ALSO INSIDE: Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, four section dividers, and a "what's next" back page.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: type into the log, graph, caseload page, family page, and probe-form fields, or print and use a pen. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document, and it is not a norm-referenced or standardized test.

It carries no elicitation, cueing or modeling script. It does not decide what counts as a correct answer, a criterion, or a typical rate for answering WH questions -- every one of those is this clinician's own call, written once and reused every session. It covers the WHAT question only; it does not include who, where, when or why. Pictures replace the printed word list a child cannot yet read; they do not replace the clinician's scoring rule.

Who This Is For

Speech-language pathologists and special education teams with young or pre-reading students working on answering WH questions, and the families who get the practice page sent home.

Pictures: Noto Emoji by Google, Apache License 2.0 (color); Fluent Emoji by Microsoft, MIT License (ink-saver black and white).