Read Bears

Supporting little readers to become lifelong learners.

FREE Reading Program for Year 1 Children

Through the Read Bears Program, HBNC’s Social Shift Institute partners with local primary schools across Queensland to provide every year one student with a Read Bear.

The program is simple: children take their Read Bear home and are tasked to read to their bear every night for a school term. The Read Bear inspires children to read, increase their frequency of reading, improve reading confidence, as well as engage families to read together.

The single biggest predictor of high academic achievement is reading to children. Not flash cards, tablets or other tools, but Mum or Dad taking the time every day to read to their children.

Our Intergenerational Community Development Model

The Read Bears Program uses an intergenerational community development model that fosters meaningful connections between older and younger people, bringing communities together through the shared goal of nurturing a love of reading. This includes all of our bears being lovingly handmade by local volunteer knitting groups, which are then given to schools to give out to their Year 1 students.

Our Why

Read Bears was developed in response to poor early childhood outcomes for Hervey Bay children evidenced in the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC). AEDC data showed well below average rates of physical, social, emotional, language, communication, vulnerability & co-morbidity compared to the rest of the region, QLD, and Australia. This was coupled with below average rates of Year 12 students graduating and the number of graduates that had poor literacy and reading skills.

Social Shift Institute & HBNC looked at how we could support children more around reading, literacy and wellbeing and created the Read Bears Program inspired by similar initiatives in Europe and Canada.

At the heart of our Read Bears program is one simple belief: the earlier the journey begins, the farther it can go. When Year 1 students read aloud to their cuddly Read Bear, something magical happens—they start building strong literacy skills, develop a love for stories, and grow the confidence to explore big ideas. With every page turned, children are laying the foundation for a lifelong love of learning and the critical thinking skills they’ll carry with them through school and beyond.