4 Ways to Teach Students how to Tell Jokes using Symbol Support (free download)

What do you do for April Fool's day in your special education classroom? This can be a tricky holiday to celebrate. In my classroom, we tell jokes! And not only on April Fool's Day. Jokes are a great way to give student confidence speaking, motivation to communication, and an appropriate way to gain attention.
How to teach special education students how to tell jokes using symbol support (free download)

I have an envelope filled with these 22 symbol supported jokes that my students can use in a variety of ways depending on their abilities.


Telling Jokes Verbally: My readers can read the question (labeled #1 on the strip) first, wait for someone to say, "I don't know" or "What?" and then read the punch line (labeled #2). We all then laugh. Ha ha ha...

Telling Jokes with a Communication Device: For my students who use Proloquo2Go (a communication app on iPad), I program in a couple of jokes with separate question and answer buttons/labels, but with a picture that corresponds to the joke. Here's one of my students telling his favorite joke using his iPad!

Telling Jokes using Switches: You can also use switches to tell jokes! If you have a two button switch, one side can be the question and the other the answer. Or if you have a multi-level switch, the first hit is the joke, and the second the punch line!

Telling Jokes by Giving them to Someone: You can also have a non-verbal student tell a joke by physically handing it to someone. With these joke strips, you can cut them apart so that #1 and #2 are separate and glue them to a different color construction paper strip, such as green for #1 and red for #2. The student would then tell the joke by handing over the green strip first, and then when the individual reads it and responds, the student can hand over the red answer strip!


Download these 20+ jokes for free here!

1 comment

  1. Thank you so much for sharing the free jokes! I printed them and added a "joke time" to my circle time. I've just been using a twin talk and putting question part of the joke on the button on the left and the punch line on the right. Thanks again :)

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