Seven critical needs require attention if the educational community is to capitalize on current opportunities for educational reform. (1) Literacy must be redefined and recognized as involving more than minimal skills. (2) All children must have access to the tools of learning and the carriers of culture. Library and instructional resources and their budgets must be restored to provide early and ready access to reading materials. (3) The higher thought processes essential to reading and English must be stressed, as must teaching methods that go beyond reading, writing, and oral interaction to include constructive response to ideas. (4) Technology must be used to strengthen reading, writing, and thinking. Studies suggest that children from culturally different and economically handicapped backgrounds have fewer opportunities than their peers to interact with computers and that such experiences are more than twice as likely to be limited to drill and practice activity. (5) Both tests and textbooks must be strengthened. Teachers need to be more aware of the ramifications of assessment programs and of the opportunities implicit in adopting multiple approaches to evaluation. (6) Kindergarten through grade 12 literary programs must be redefined. Too often, overt concern with basic reading and writing skills leads unintentionally to a neglect of humankind's common heritage, and to a reduction in the time devoted to literary studies. (7) Teaching conditions and teacher education must be reconstituted to support achievement of excellence. More concern must be given to qualitative considerations in the teaching of English and reading. (HTH)