The Broad Street Pump: read-along
The Broad Street Pump as a read-along for the projector: 9 pages, 1410 words, level 17, beyond grade 8.
Page 1 of 9
In the summer of 1854, the district of Soho in central London was one of the most crowded neighborhoods in the largest city in the world. Thousands of people lived there in narrow houses and cramped apartments, and the streets were filled with workshops, taverns, markets, and small factories. There were no pipes carrying clean water into the homes, and most families collected their water from public pumps on the street corners. Sewage was normally drained into cesspools beneath the cellars, which were pits that were emptied only occasionally. In an age before germs were understood, these arrangements seemed to trouble hardly anyone, and nobody imagined that the ordinary habit of fetching a bucket from the pump could possibly turn out to be dangerous. Historians estimate that the capital contained more than two million inhabitants at that time, and its explosive growth had far outpaced the construction of any adequate system for removing waste, so that the foul contents of the cesspools frequently seeped into the surrounding ground.
Keys: ← → or Page Up and Page Down turn the page, Space starts and pauses the voice, Home and End jump, F fills the screen. Tapping the right side of a page goes on; the left side goes back.
How to use it
- Press Full screen (F) to put the book on the projector.
- Press Read to me (Space), or read it yourself and turn pages with the arrow keys or a tap. Pick the Pace that suits the class.
- After the last page, three questions come up to talk about.
About this book
- Level 17, beyond grade 8
- 9 pages, 1410 words, about 10 minutes aloud
- A true book, gentle
Related
About The Broad Street Pump
A true story of London in 1854, when Dr. John Snow mapped a deadly outbreak of cholera and traced it to a single water pump.
Words to preview
- cholera (KOL-ur-uh)
- water-borne sickness
- miasma (my-AZ-muh)
- bad-air theory
- cesspool (SES-pool)
- sewage pit
- epidemiology (ep-ih-dee-mee-OL-uh-jee)
- disease-spread science
- vindicated (VIN-dih-kay-tid)
- proved right
Questions that fit any book
- What is one new thing you learned from this book?
- Which page told you the most? What did it say?
- What would you still like to find out about this?
Questions
How long does The Broad Street Pump take to read aloud?
It has 9 pages and 1410 words, so about 10 minutes at the Steady pace and a little less at Quick. If you stop to talk on the way, plan for more.
What reading level is The Broad Street Pump?
Level 17, beyond grade 8. The library numbers its levels from 0 to 18 and puts the level of a book on its cover; levels above 13 are beyond grade 8 and have no grade. A level is a guide for choosing, so look at the pages yourself.
Whose voice is it?
Your browser's own. Read to me uses a speaking voice already on the computer, so it sounds like that computer and works without a sign-in. Voices differ: some light each word as it is spoken, and some do not, in which case the highlight follows a steady pace instead. Some browsers use an online voice; if yours does, the browser, not us, sends the words of the page to its speech service. If no voice is installed, turn the pages and read it aloud yourself.
Do students need an account?
No. Nothing is asked of anyone and nothing is sent to us. Project the page, or share the link and let students open it on their own screens.
Where does this book come from?
It was written for Peabody's library as a true book. It is not copied from a textbook or another site.
Nothing you do here is sent to us. The voice is your browser's own. No sign-in, no ads.