How do we develop a school culture of reading? While we emphasize a lot on the ‘why’ we should be reading, let us look at the ‘how’ of reading. Along with the ‘how’, I shall share some of my personal habits I have inculcated in myself and my students when it comes to reading.

Reading is all about Emotion. A letter joins to form a word, which then forms sentences, that turns into a paragraph, a page, an essay and a novel. Thus we condition our minds to be emotionally charged with reading. Now, a mind trained to pick up the mobile at the drop of a ‘notification sound’ is too ill-programmed to be reading-conditioned. That is why it takes more than mere literacy to begin ‘reading’. It takes courage and patience. Perseverance and Persistence. It takes passion to be a Reader.

(RELATED: Know the basic skills of literacy)

Remember, readers are leaders. To understand the concept of reading, we can use a simple yet effective strategy that can help us focus on our reading genes. After all, much before the world was introduced to technology, humans made rapid progress after the invention of printing press. Humans became global citizens when they began to READ.

The whole concept of reading can be categorized into a memorable acronym READ, which can be our key to open the doors of literacy and a lifelong love for words.

R = Ritual

E = Environment

A = Access

D = Dialogue

1. R = Ritual

Reading is a ritual. Yes, as much as getting up and brushing your teeth or tying your shoelace. This can be programmed into an involuntary action. You would slip in the reading mode as if by habit than by consciousness.

A key tip here is making books part of your lifestyle. As we discussed the ritual of reading, the more your students notice you with a book in your hand, the more they would be conscious to pick one next time.

Thus incorporating reading as a meaningful ritual is the first task of a good reading program. For example, you must set aside a daily time for reading. It could be early morning with your tea or just when about to go to bed at night. Research confirms that when you go to bed, after having viewed moving animations or pictures, the mind takes twice the time to go to an ‘off’ mode. So next time, you wonder why you could not sleep after all those YouTube videos and WhatsApp messages, you now know why!

Even if you need to begin with horror do not hesitate. Read. For my X-Files workshop on World of the Unknown [Ghosts & Spirits], I read cover to cover a dozen books on jinns, occult and exorcist plus a dozen interviews and articles on paranormal incidents. Now, your library could start with sports, event management, recipe or anything that could induce an environment of reading culture.

2. E = Environment

With all books around, you may still never reach them. You may ask, how is that possible? That’s because we have created a “book zoo” in our homes and schools! In simple English, it refers to books kept in glass shelves with locks. How much more inaccessible you could get with your treasure?

Books are meant to be read and not stored like trophies. If you like to store your books, get digital ones. We must live by the age and the time for displaying your books is over. Research says, people never think of reading most books twice, unless when someone requests it from their bookshelf!

Why not make them accessible for you and your family? A great environment for your books means to place books at an arms-length in your home and school. Make books an extension of your furniture. I ask parents to name any five favourite books of their child and normally find grunts and nods as answers. Imagine, if our association with the books is too weak, how do we expect a reading culture in our schools?

Also, the school libraries are almost either too sacred a place where you go in with proper time and too much of etiquette to benefit from the books or too distant where you visit once a week or even a fortnight. The selection of books is done based on the budget (understandable) and librarian’s choice (not acceptable) and not on what children want to read.

How do you make books accessible? Read this article.

3. A = Access

Reading is a multi-level task. It is a mix of skills, ability and attitude. Simply reading is not enough. To develop a school reading culture, we need to relook at our reading concepts properly. Thus read-a-thon might help. Think of it as running a marathon, however not on the roads but pages of a book!

The ability to read is at the beginner level and could be renamed as decoding. It is like the ability to walk in a child. Of course, that is exciting but you are miles from being an Usain Bolt!

Next up, is the comprehension. To be able to understand what you are reading.

Stamina is akin to participating in a marathon. The mere ability to walk would be an entry level criterion. It is the ability to walk for long distances enduring the hardships is what marathoners are looking for. Thus as in the word read-a-thon, it is your stamina that counts. This is the advanced level.

Earlier you decoded and comprehended. But now you need to read pages after pages to develop a reading culture. That’s developing a voracious appetite for reading. You consume everything that comes your way from newspapers to dictionaries.

And finally is the fluency. It is not only about walking the long distance but also walking within an acceptable time frame. Thus a good reader would not only satisfy herself by relishing one book of the Harry Potter series but rather devour all the seven, and at an even pace.

Once you have mastered these four steps to reading, you emerge as an insatiable reader whose appetite is only fulfilled with libraries and more pages.

4. D = Dialogue

Dialogue is the essence of reading with your child or student. Reading opens up new fronts and channels of communication. You explore new stories and find new friends in the characters of the book. A dialogue is basically a meaningful conversation that you have with someone.

Imagine having a conversation with the characters of your book. No, we are not asking you to have schizophrenia and imagine people all around you. Rather if you speak about the characters to others, speak about the plots, discuss the lessons you have learnt, feel elated at their success and be sorrowful of their losses.

So next time, let your students know what you think of Willy Wonka from the Chocolate Factory or spend time explaining to your spouse the life transformation of Jonathan Livingston, the seagull. Or you may take your own childhood lessons from Amir Aga and his fast-footed Kite Runner from Khalid Hosseini’s tales set in Afghanistan.

A dialogue is essential to keep your motivation from the book on. A dialogue lets you express your learning from the book. A dialogue also opens up an altogether new and interesting conversation. And yes, a dialogue gets other to take notice and maybe, just maybe, get your student excited to pick up another book of their own!

Whenever I tell people I read an average of one to two books a week, I get the same question: “How are you able to read so much? I just don’t have the time.”

Actually, you do have the time, but the simple answer — saying you just have to decide that reading is more important than other discretionary activities like social media, TV, etc. — is also too simple.

After all, if reading more were as simple as just deciding to read more, we’d all be avid readers. (Just as we’d all be trimmer, fitter, and healthier.)

So let’s dig a little deeper. If you want to read more:

1. Stop reading books you think you’re supposed to read.

When I was in my early 20s I went on a classic-author binge: Melville. Hawthorne. Tolstoy. Proust. (Those were some really hard miles.) Dostoevsky. Steinbeck. Faulkner.

I thought their books were books I was supposed to read. I thought having read the classics would make me … I don’t know, would make me something.

In most cases, all reading those books did was make me bored. (Seriously: Tell me The House of the Seven Gables isn’t really heavy going.)

Then I asked a history professor for a few recommendations. “I like history,” I said, “but I can’t get through history books. Can you recommend some that are more reader-friendly?” (Yep. I was quite the intellectual.)

Fortunately he didn’t take offense, recommending books like Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels (one of the most re-readable books ever) and Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory. And I remembered why I liked to read.

Don’t try to read what you think you’re supposed to read. Read what you enjoy.

And don’t worry that reading what you enjoy is a waste of time. Say you’re trying to improve yourself; you’ll enjoy reading books that make you smarter, or more skilled, or more connected, or more motivated. You’ll love reading books that make a difference in your life.

RELATED: See these books which would make you smarter.

And that’s all that matters.

2. Don’t be afraid to stop reading a book you don’t enjoy.

The professor gave me other great advice. “Remember,” he said, “you’re reading for pleasure. If you pick up a book and don’t like it, put it down. Never feel inadequate if you don’t like what you’re supposed to like. Reading is personal. Yours is the only opinion that matters.”

I needed to hear that. I needed that “permission.” I often feel compelled to finish something I start; if I don’t, I feel like a quitter.

Even though quitting is sometimes the best thing to do.

If a book doesn’t grab you, let it go. If you’re two-thirds of the way through and the author has lost you, let it go. See it as a sunk cost. Don’t waste time finishing a book you don’t enjoy when you could spend that time reading a book you do enjoy.

Plus, reading one good book almost always leads you to another good book. Reading a bad book makes you never want to read again.

3. Put reading time on your schedule.

Sound strange? It’s not. I know a number of people who get up early and read for 30 minutes before they start their day. I know a bunch more who read for 30 minutes before they go to bed.

If something is important enough to want to do, it’s important enough to schedule.

Try it. See reading as a priority. Block out time. Not only will you read more, you’ll feel good about it the fact you’re doing something good for yourself.

4. Take advantage of “edge time.”

If you’re like most people, your biggest downtimes during the workday occur during your commute, when you’re in airports, or when you’re waiting for appointments.

Think of that time as “edge time.” Some people, like Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, schedules calls for his drive to work. He doesn’t schedule calls for his drive home; instead he return calls to people on the West Coast.

You can do the same with reading, especially when unexpected edge time pops up. I used to commute two hours one way and always had a book with me. If I got stuck in traffic, I could read. If I decided to stop to eat, I could read. If I had an appointment and got stuck in the black hole of a reception area, I could read.

Always have a book with you — because you never know when you’ll find some edge time.

5. Read books you can then talk about.

Reading is great, but it can also be a lonely activity. Everything happens in your head, in your imagination, in your emotions. Reading isn’t a shared activity.

Unless you make it one.

Ask a friend for recommendations. Ask a colleague for recommendations. (If you’re struggling to find good books to read, those are great places to start.)

And then circle back. Ask your friend what he or she liked most about the book. Ask your colleague what he or she took away from the book. Make the book the springboard for a broader conversation.

And feel free to engage the author. Trust me: Authors love to hear from readers. Writing is a lonely activity, too. You’ll be surprised by the connections and even relationships you can develop by starting a conversation with the author of a book you enjoy.

The bottom line: Read what you enjoy. Non-fiction, fiction, teen lit, graphic novels–who cares? If you like it, that’s all that matters. Much of the time we need to at least consider what other people think–but not if it stands in the way of living the life we really want to live.

The holiday gift-giving season approacheth (or is already here, for those of you who Black Friday). Time to make your list and check it twice, and I’m assuming you’ll be matching everyone on it with an appropriately bookish gift. Giving literary gifts can be tough, especially when you’re dealing with people who aren’t necessarily as into reading as you are. Here are a few ground rules to keep in mind:

1. Don’t be an evangelist. Your friends and family know you love reading, they know you loved [insert title you’ve been raving about all year]. Don’t use the holidays as an excuse to evangelize for the title and give it to everyone you know, regardless of whether they’re interested in it or not. That’s the literary equivalent of leaving a Bible tract instead of a tip. Don’t be that guy.

2. Spy on them (digital edition). Dive into their Goodreads or LibraryThing account. Most users have a TBR set up on their bookish social media profiles–it’s a built-in shopping list for you! Bookish Instagram users tend to post pics of their current reads, which will give you an idea of the person’s taste.

3. Spy on them (physical edition). Creep your friends’ bookshelves. Do they have every book by one author, minus one? Get them that one. Do they have multiple editions of a certain title? They’re probably collecting them–get them a nice new edition.

4. Explain yourself. When you’re gifting books (especially to non-readers), explain why you picked that title. I like to write a quick note on a bookmark or Christmas card and insert it into the book before I wrap it. Some people write an inscription. For example, if you’re giving your nerdy science-loving brother The Martian (good pick), write something short about how the book will scratch his NASA itch and penchant for bad puns and saying the f-word. It just lets people know you really considered their interests before picking the book.

5. Ask the perfect question. An old tip from my bookseller days: ask the person you’re shopping for what the last book they read that they loved was. Work it into a conversation that doesn’t have to do with gift-giving, obviously. The answer will show you what genre or tone or style of book the person likes, and you can take it from there.

6. Ask the next most perfect question. If the person isn’t a reader, ask them what the last movie they loved was. Was it a Marvel superhero flick? Get them a trade of one of the comics or the Marvel Avengers Encyclopedia. A Wes Anderson project? Stick with literary fiction. You get the idea.

7. Don’t limit yourself to books. There are so many options for bookISH gifts that aren’t actually books. Bookish t-shirts, coffee mugs, posters, totes. Check Etsy (or our own Book Riot Store) for ideas.

8. Stay away from gifting a whole series. It might be tempting to give your best friend all the extant volumes of Game of Thrones so you two can finally talk about what happens to Sansa, but what you’re really gifting is a lot of pressure. Several thousand pages of pressure. Don’t put your friends and family in a position where you’ve spent a lot of money and they have to then spend several weeks doing something they might not be interested in so they don’t hurt your feelings.

9. Ask an indie bookseller. If you’re lucky enough to have a local indie, head over and grill the staff. They LIVE for this. Have a great-uncle obsessed with the Civil War and CSI:Miami and you want to gift him a book but don’t know where to even start? That’s a puzzle for a bookseller, my friend, and they always come through.

10. Get tangential. This is especially handy for non-readers. Find out what they’re into (bird watching, basket weaving, World War II history, pop culture, whatever) and get a book tangentially related to that topic. A novel of WWII for the history buff (Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky is a great choice–the author died in Auschwitz so there’s a lot to parse). H is for Hawk, a memoir of hawking as a method of grief recovery, for the animal lover.

I’ve always been a total book addict. I’m addicted to the emotions, excitement, touch, feel and smell of books. If I could live on books and nothing else, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

So yes: I’m a bit of an addict. Hi, my name is Megan and I’m a bookaholic. If you have any of these fifteen warning signs, you’re a bookaholic too. But don’t worry about kicking the habit. Books are awesome. So if you’re a girl, Cosmo made a list of feminist book to read.

1. Over 90% of any wishlist (birthday, Christmas, shopping list) are books.Who needs food and clothes anyway? And if you ever go into a bookshop or library, you leave with at least five books more than you planned on buying. Oops…

2. Your friends or family chat about TV or film adaptions of books and all you can say is: “Please. The book was a million times better. I mean, the film didn’t even mention this, they changed that, they didn’t have this quote, they…” Double points if aforementioned friends and family roll their eyes and say “Typical insert-your-name-here”.

3. Everyone else you know has pictures of the latest band, movie or animal on their wall, but your walls are covered in bookshelves, book posters and book postcards.

4. Speaking of your room, you have so many books in your bedroom that they’ve spread of off the bookshelves onto floors, desks, chest of drawers and beds. But really, who needs to see their silly old floors anyway?

5. Most kids went as pop stars, footballers, doctors, nurses and superheroes to dress-up-as-what-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up day, but you went in wearing normal clothes with a notebook tucked under your arm. You also gave scathing looks to anyone who asked “What are you meant to be?” Because, obviously, you were an author.

6. Some of your best friends aren’t ‘real’ – as non-book-addicts put it.They’re characters from your favourite books. Your heroes also aren’t pop stars, movie stars or humanitarians. They’re authors. You look up to authors as godlike creatures who hold your favourite characters’ fates in their hands.

7. You have been mentally scarred by books (Harry Potter, The Fault In Our Stars, War Horse…). But despite this they make you happier than anything else. Until you finish them. Then it feels like your heart has broken and the hole in your soul will never be healed. Until you find your new favourite book…

8. You are the go-to-person for book recommendations. Everyone knows you read more than a normal mortal and that, generally, you always have a suggestion. Book addicts are awesome like that!

9. You can bring any topic back around to your fave book. For example: “Ah, the dangers of cyber-crimes. We’d really be so much safer if we all bank at Gringotts, where of money would be looked after by goblins and dragons. It’s really only logical. In Harry Potter…” “Oh, your boyfriend’s name is Eddie? He’s brilliant in Vampire Academy: I really love him. Have you read that yet? It’s so…” And so on and so on.

You also have a bookish quote for all situations. Wishing someone good luck: “May the odds be ever in your favour.” When someone says something about reality: “Of course it’s happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” A dramatic, heart-breaking, beautiful love story: Snape’s “Always” and TFIOS’s “Okay? Okay.” I could go on – trust me… All your advice comes from books too – you just direct people to your favourite book on the topic!

10. You don’t have normal dreams: you dream about worlds you’ve visited in books, characters you met in books and adventures you’ve had in books. Basically, you’re all books, all the time. You even daydream about books.

11. You’d do anything (eat a poisoned apple, spin gold from hay) if you could live in your favourite bookish world – even just for a day.

12. When you grow up and have children (or pets), you plan to name all of them after your favourite characters from books. Poor Hermione, Augustus, Luna, Magnus and Sherlock…

13. You’d happily give up the real world (and food) if you could just live in books all the time. Actually, if you’re reading an awesome book, you do ignore the real world – you forget about water, sleep, homework and other people. People have to say your name five times to even get your attention and you end up sleep deprived because you stayed up super late to finish the book. But you don’t care because that book… it was so worth it!

14. When you’re trying to do revision for exams, you settle on this little reward system: for every two chapters of the revision book you read, you can read a chapter of the fiction book you’re currently reading. I mean, what better reward is there than a chapter of an awesome book? (Your friends say the answer is biscuits, YouTube or sleep. You agree to disagree.)

15. If you were freezing to death and had to put something on the fire to keep it burning, you’d burn your own clothes, pencils, shoes, food and even your own hair before you’d throw your books on. Who cares if you survive, so long as your pretties are ok?

When you’re a book-lover like me, you can’t help but express your passion for all things literary, all the time. Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you I’m constantly recommending new novels, debating book-to-screen adaptations, sharing author news, or giving books away to anyone who will take them. When people come to my house, whether it’s for dinner, a game night, a cookout, or just a quick visit, no one leaves without a book — or a stack of them — in their arms. It’s a habit I picked up a few years ago, and it’s one that has changed the way I think about reading.

For a lot of book-lovers and bibliophiles out there, the idea of lending, let alone giving, books away is like stepping straight into a newly discovered circle of hell. As readers, we get attached to our handsome hardcovers and priceless paperbacks, and there is nothing we enjoy more than watching our bookshelves get filled with read and unread titles alike. Because to us, books are so much more than ink, paper, and cloth. They are adventure and inspiration, mystery and romance, empowerment and empathy. They are our tickets out of this world, and into another one entirely.

But as much as we bibliophiles hate lending, giving, losing, or damaging books from our own personal libraries, we equally love spreading our passion for reading. The best way to do that? Giving great books to good people.

I have always been fond of collecting books, and when I left home for college, I brought more boxes of books with me than I did clothes, refusing to leave a single one behind for my family to take, or worse, get rid of. Over the years, and through the course of eight semesters as an English major, those boxes multiplied even more and eventually became the bulk of possessions that followed me when I moved to New York and began a career in publishing. I moved into my tiny city apartment with a bed, a suitcase full of what professional clothes I had, and more than three bookshelves worth of worn paperbacks, unread hardcovers, and even some picture books from childhood. It was, in my mind, the foundation to the epic library I would someday build in whatever kick ass apartment I landed after publishing my first of many successful novels. (Hey, a naive millennial can dream, right?)

But after working in publishing for just a few weeks, I realized my new career was to my bookshelf what food and water was to Gremlins after midnight. Suddenly, and without warning, my collection multiplied to dangerous levels. Between the books I got from my employer to the ones I got as industry perks, I quickly and without warning not only had too many books for my shelves, I had too many books for my coffee and bedside table, for my closet shelves and my living room floor.

Since watching the iconic scene in Beauty and the Beast, I had always dreamed about having an epic library, but the reality of my space turned that dream into an overwhelming, disorganized, stress-inducing nightmare. My books, at least some of them, had to go. But where?

Like most people who have too much of one thing, I decided to go through my personal library and weed out the books I didn’t think I needed anymore, or books I didn’t like. I lived in New York, after all, and I knew there were dozens of non profit literary organizations who could use two of my three copies of Little Women or my still unopened collection of Dr. Seuss classics. But even after packing up boxes of books to donate, I still had way more than I could ever read (let alone fit in my tiny home) in a lifetime.

That’s when I started giving books to anyone who came over my house.

It started when I had a friend come by for a drink after work. We were chatting on the couch about one thing or another, when something in the conversation made me think of a book I had sitting on my nightstand. I immediately leapt up and grabbed it to show her, and after seeing her interest, insisted that she take it home, read it, and not give it back. She was delighted. A week later, after she finished the book, she said it was the best thing she had read all year, and she wondered if I had any other recommendations for her.

She had no idea what she was getting herself into, asking a book hoarder for more books, but I immediately recognized the new opportunity at hand. Soon enough, gifting books was a tradition I stuck to — and guests began expecting — whenever someone stopped by my house.

Flash forward to a few years later and a new career as a books writer and reviewer, and I still have more books than I know what to do with. Every day, the mail brings review copies of upcoming titles, paperbacks of last year’s best books, and just about everything in between. But now, I have a way of keeping the stock under control, at least a little bit, because I don’t let anyone — not my visiting family members, friends, colleagues, or acquaintances — leave my house without at least one new title in their hands.

Sometimes when I’m reading a new book, I know who I want to give it to by the end of the first chapter. Something about the character reminds me of a friend who can relate, or the plot is relevant to a discussion I had with one of my sisters, and I just know they’ll appreciate it. Other times, it works in reverse, and a conversation at game night sends me running down the hall to my office to grab a book that would be just perfect for my visitor. No matter how it happens, sharing books has become something I not only do for work online, but something I do for fun in person. For fun, and, I’m learning, for inspiration.

There are the books I love so much, I keep multiple copies on hand to give out like candy on Halloween. I can’t tell you how many people have left my house with We Should All Be Feminists and Hope In the Dark in their hands. There are the novels that I love and want to give away, but can’t part with myself, so I buy a second copy to stow away until the right person comes over for dinner. And then there are the books on my shelves that deserve a better home, one that will give them more attention. Usually titles I have already read, or have had for a year and still haven’t gotten around to, these books live on a browseable bookcase I tell people to please, please take something from. Because no matter how much I love my books, I think I have come to love sharing them even more.

Giving someone a book is like giving someone a piece of your soul. You may not have written it, but in reading it and experiencing it, a book has become a part of you. Passing it onto someone else is, in a way, like passing on that piece of yourself, too. Whether it be your interests, your dreams, your fears, your opinions, or your inspirations, you are giving someone so much more than paper and ink when you give them a book.

Books have the power to do so much. They can entertain and educate. They can empower and empathize. They can expand the mind, nurture the heart, and grow the imagination. They can take people out of their own experiences, and give them an opportunity to walk in someone else’s shoes.

When you give someone a book, it is the closest you can get to giving someone the world — or at least, a world. And luckily for me, I still have so many worlds left to give.