The low per-capita reading rate in Iran indicates that common policies and measures—such as book fairs, paper subsidies, the expansion of public libraries, and the production of supplementary educational packages—despite their scale, have failed to genuinely increase the habit of reading in society, sometimes yielding side effects such as booming commercial book markets or the unnatural growth of publishers. The formation of a reading culture begins within the family and is consolidated during elementary education through schools and the educational system; hence, the school, as the child's primary national institution of engagement with society, plays a pivotal role in institutionalizing this culture. Key challenges are identifiable across three domains: content, education, and infrastructure. These include an intense focus on textbooks accompanied by a scarcity of appropriate non-textbook resources, a congested curriculum with a lack of systematic reference to supplementary materials, weak information literacy and inadequate skills among teachers and administrators in utilizing library resources, and the shortage or repurposing of educational spaces such as libraries and laboratories. The consequence of this situation is the imposition of reading and memorizing curricular materials on children, fostering a negative experience of reading. Proposed strategies include incorporating "further reading" sections in textbooks, allocating formal time for non-curricular reading under the supervision of school associations, establishing and strengthening school libraries featuring appropriate architecture and resources along with specialized librarians, training teachers and student-teachers in information literacy, forming book selection working groups for schools, and equipping libraries with attractive and ergonomic facilities tailored to children.