Claire's Day recognizes students for reading accomplishments

More than 500 students were recognized with Claire’s Awards for Reading Excellence Saturday at the Maumee Branch Library.

“Each teacher can nominate the most improved reader in their classroom, and they come and get their award,” Diana Bush, the executive director for Read for Literacy, said. “They're also given a voucher to choose a book by one of our six visiting authors and illustrators and have it autographed.”

Families buzzed with support for their young readers, who had challenged themselves over the past few months to press into a skill that didn’t come naturally to them.

“I didn't really understand the words I was reading,” 12-year-old Gloria Sayer of Maumee Intermediate School said about her experience reading about a year ago.

But Claire’s Day, with the help of her teacher, offered an incentive and a path for Gloria to build on the skill of reading with repetition.

“Before she started school, she had very little interest in reading books,” Gloria’s mother, Megan, said. “Because it was very challenging for her.”

Somewhere along the line, she got the hang of moving her eyes across the page, and now she referred to reading in one word, “Heaven.”

“I don't really have to be bored as much,” Gloria said as she colored a new bookmark at a craft table for the kids.

Hundreds of variations on Gloria’s story lined up, high-fived their teachers, and cheesed with a sense of accomplishment as different schools rotated in different time slots on the grounds from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., including Oregon Schools, Springfield Schools, Washington Local Schools, Sylvania Schools, and a couple of Catholic schools.

A few weeks before, on May 4, Toledo Public Schools had their Claire’s Day event, which boasted around 700 C.A.R.E. Award winners for about 1200 recipients of the reading awards this year.

Julie and Brad Rubini were the parents of Claire Lynsey Rubini, the namesake of Claire’s Day, and it was their combined vision and desire to honor their child who loved to read that birthed Claire’s Day.

“Claire was our daughter who just absolutely loved to read,” Mrs. Rubini said. “And when we lost her, we felt compelled to honor her in a way that was true to her.”

“We wanted to recognize readers, but we didn't want to recognize kids that reading came easily, as it did for Claire,” she said.

An avid reader, Claire would spend time reading with her father but soon realized her father’s learning disability.

“Well, the first time that she discovered I was reading the words wrong to her, it hurt,” Mr. Rubini said. “I mean, it sucked to me that I can't read properly to my child, but then it became our bonding time.”

Mr. Rubini was born with dyslexia and always has struggled to read, so when the parents decided to honor their child they focused on how Mr. Rubini spent time with his daughter.

Recalling his time in school, Mr. Rubini said his struggle with reading was “out of the box,” and not a traditional problem teachers knew how to handle.

“There was two of us that couldn't really read, and they didn't know what to do,” he said. “Well, now they do [know what to do], and they spend more time with these kids.”

A big part of Claire’s Day is motivating kids with difficulties not to give up.

“It's exciting to see how much growth she's seen over the last year thanks to her teacher and her intervention,” Jody Blackmore, a parent of five-year-old Lilly Blackmore, who received a C.A.R.E. Award, said.

Chris Noward, Lilly Blackmore’s Kindergarten teacher at Fort Miami Elementary School, chose her for the award. He has also chosen many of his students for C.A.R.E. Awards.

“They didn't see themselves as readers, and this is a memory I think they hold onto and it's a fun day for everyone,” he said.

Claire’s Day’s inaugural launch was in 2002 with just 25 award winners, but it has grown naturally. The Rubinis said the main impetus for its impact has been when Read for Literacy took on Claire’s Day.

“We ultimately merged and came under their [Read for Literacy’s] signature line of service umbrella organization, and with their staff and with their resources,” the growth of Claire’s Day has been even greater than it was before, Julie Rubini said.