The Great Fire of London: read-aloud with discussion questions
Read The Great Fire of London aloud on the projector: 11 pages of big type with each word lit as it is said, 821 words (about 6 minutes), level 10, grade 5, and 5 questions to talk about.
Page 1 of 11
It began in a bakery, in the dark. A baker named Thomas Farriner went to bed on Pudding Lane in London, in the year 1666. At about one o'clock in the morning, a fire woke up his house. Maybe a spark from an oven landed on a pile of wood. Nobody can say for sure. But we do know that this one small fire would burn for four days, and it would burn down much of a great city.
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 the questions come up on the screen. The same questions are below, with what to listen for.
About this book
- Level 10, Grade 5
- 11 pages, 821 words, about 6 minutes aloud
- A true book, gentle
Related
About The Great Fire of London
An 821-word true account of the 1666 fire that began in a bakery on Pudding Lane and burned for four days. It explains why the fire spread, what people did against it and how Samuel Pepys's diary lets us know what it looked like. It is honest about what historians do not know: how many people died.
In September 1666 a fire began in a bakery on Pudding Lane and burned for four days. A true story of wooden houses, a dry summer, a diarist who buried his cheese, and a city rebuilt in brick.
Before you read
Ask what a fire needs to keep burning. Tell the class that this fire began small, and ask them to listen for the reasons it grew.
Words to preview
- bakery (BAY-ker-ee)
- bread shop
- parish (PAIR-ish)
- church district
- gunpowder (GUN-pow-der)
- explosive powder
- diary (DY-uh-ree)
- daily journal
- brick (brik)
- baked clay block
- rebuilt (ree-BILT)
- built again
Questions to talk about
- Where and when did the fire start?Listen for: In a bakery on Pudding Lane in London, around one o'clock in the morning in 1666. The book says nobody can say for sure what started it.
- What made the fire spread so fast?Listen for: Wooden houses crammed close together, a dry summer and a strong east wind pushing the flames west from house to house.
- How did people try to stop the fire, and why didn't it work at first?Listen for: Neighbors used buckets and long hooks to pull houses down, but the fire was too fast and the houses stood too close. Later the king ordered houses pulled down before the fire, and gunpowder made gaps faster than hooks could.
- How do we know what the fire looked like?Listen for: Samuel Pepys kept a diary and wrote what he saw, including that it made him weep. A diary by someone who was there is a first-hand account.
- Historians still argue about how many people died. Why is it hard to know?Listen for: Few deaths are recorded, but a fire that hot can burn away almost everything, and nobody counted people while they were running. It is a good place to talk about what records can and cannot tell us.
Questions
How long does The Great Fire of London take to read aloud?
It has 11 pages and 821 words, so about 6 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 Great Fire of London?
Level 10, Grade 5. The library numbers its levels from 0 to 18 and puts the level of a book on its cover; level 10 sits at grade 5. 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.