5 WH Questions Speech Therapy Activities (Lots of Visuals!)

Today I’m going to focus on some activities you can use to work on Wh questions in speech therapy with students who are new(-ish) to working on Wh- questions. I have used these activities with students on the autism spectrum and with students who use AAC, so I tend to incorporate visuals whenever possible.

Routine Questions

This is a great way to work on functional Wh- questions, particularly with students with minimal expressive language. You can even start your session with the same few Wh- questions each time. Some examples include:

What did you eat for breakfast/lunch/snack? (depending on when you see the student)
What color is your shirt today?
Who is your teacher?
Who helped you get ready for school today?
Where are we?
Why do we come to school?

Sorting by Type of Question

This is a great way to work on starting to understand what types of words go with the different Wh- questions (people=who, places=where, etc.)

First make some sorting mats. You can just print out large icons of the different WH- questions with the word and visuals. (I use Boardmaker but there are lots of ways to do this). Or you can take construction paper and glue on the word/icons for each Wh question and laminate them.

Next print out a variety of smaller pictures they can sort. For instance, people=who, places=where, objects/actions=what, etc. and cut them apart.

You can start with just one mat, then go up to to more slowly.

If you don’t want to make it yourself – grab this WH Questions Sorting Activity here!

This free Types of WH Questions Chart would be a perfect visual aid for this activity!

WH Questions Speech Therapy Activity Cards

For students who really need visuals to comprehend information, I think it’s important for visuals to be included not only for the answer choices but also to help comprehend the question itself. That’s why I made these WH Questions Cards with visuals for both!

Language Bingo

If your students benefit from a game to stay engaged, this WH Questions Bingo game has got you covered. You can target who, what, when, where, or why questions individually – or work on mixed WH Questions!

Because the boards have pictures of the answers, they act as a large field of visual choices. (You can use boards that are 3×3 or 5×5 depending on your students’ levels!)

Short Stories with WH Questions Speech Therapy

For even more of a challenge, you can have your students read/listen to a short story and have them answer comprehension questions. This set of short stories is a great way to work on answering questions in context.

Instead of just jumping straight to writing-in answers, this set includes three levels of support for students not ready to make that jump.

Level 1: Includes multiple choices with pictures. Students can cut and paste the answers.
Level 2: Includes written multiple choices. Students can cut and paste the answers.
Level 3: Students write-in their answers.