Bump Reading

Can home cooked Meatloaf and a glass of wine be classified PD??

Well I guess it can when you learn something new! :)

My Canadian Middle School colleague kindly invited me over for dinner (well, actually it was on the demand from her husband as he discovered I had never had Meatloaf before - something that just had to be fixed then and there!) one Friday evening. As in most cases when two teachers get together, the conversation topic of work sometimes pops up. She was retelling a hilarious story of when her husband came to visit the classroom and was involved in "Bump Reading". The story was told with great vigor but the whole idea of this "bump reading" was something I had never come across before.

It can be used when reading a long piece of text where you might usually ask students to volunteer to read or go around the room. Instead of this fairly structured way, the idea is the students can bump or "tag" in another student once they have read their part. The rules can be quiet flexible and can be changed if just introducing it to the class or to make it a bit more high stakes.
Initially rules like:

• Everyone must have a go in the class by the time we read this section
• You have to read at least 3 sentences before bumping
• Can only bump at the end of a sentence

The aim is to:

• Keep students following on the page
• Everyone has to be prepared
• Get everyone one actively involved
• keep students attentive as they don't know when they will be bumped
• can be fun :)

Classes who become comfortable, conditions can be added, for example: can read as much or as little as they want meaning they can stop part way through the sentence.
This may not have great repercussions in math classes; but for science this could be a quite useful!