- December 14, 2025
Students and teachers across the state have been participating in the tenth annual Celebrate Literacy Week, Florida! event.
Literacy Week, which took place from Monday, Jan. 22 to Friday, Jan. 26, was created to promote reading and writing in a way that is fun for students.
In Port Orange, many students have not only been reading new books but dressing up in costume to connect with the material they are reading.
This year's theme was Find Yourself in a Book!
At Sweetwater Elementary, a book drive was held with books being donated to Horizon Elementary as well as a shelter for women and children. During the morning announcements, teachers shared their favorite childhood books.
"Teachers are involved with creating that fun atmosphere by focusing on a book and having the children become part of the story," Carol Ryves, Sweetwater Elementary media specialist, said. "Teachers took the step beyond by coming on the morning news, giving author presentations and being part of a very fun video."
There was also a contest in the media center to guess how many books there are and the winner was given their choice of a new book. Primary classes paired up with intermediate classes for a buddy reading system and the entire school had a designated time when everyone "dropped everything and read," according to Ryves.
"It is important to create experiences that the children will remember and these experiences are a gateway to deeper understanding of why we are in school and do the hard work they do every day," Ryves said. "Literacy in particular is fun and we want the children to enjoy this aspect of their education."
Sweetwater teachers also chose books that were used as inspiration to decorate their classroom doors. The culminating activity was a book character parade where students used the classroom’s featured book and dressed up as characters from the book.
Atlantic High students had similar activities to Sweetwater. Students participated in literature trivia, there was a bookmark contest and at the beginning of the week there was a pajama party for students who read four or more books from the library on their own time.
Kris Smith, Atlantic High School media specialist, said there was also a door decorating contest that students were able to help with. Students were also able to be a part of a poetry slam and trivia games that were centered around literature.
Smith said one fun part of the week was when the teachers were able to tell the students about the books they read when they were teens. The teachers also wrote down the books they are currently reading so that students could see that reading doesn't stop after high school.
"Even though we want to highlight reading year round, we want to spotlight reading with these celebrations," Smith said. "Books can transport us and reading, especially fiction, has been shown to bring more empathy to people. It's a time we can talk about that."
