Developed in response to deficiencies in verbal and quantitative skills demonstrated by students entering New Jersey colleges and taking the New Jersey Basic Skills Placement Test, this overview is designed to help interested educators orient themselves to the important and rapidly growing field of thinking skills instruction. The Task Force on Thinking offered the following findings and recommendations. (1) If the kinds of thinking necessary for academic success are to be developed, educational institutions will have to undertake a major effort to develop the skills themselves. The type of thinking emphasized in educational institutions is more abstract, critical, systematic, and precise than the thinking characteristic of most non-school environments; therefore, academic thinking must be taught. (2) The demand that educational institutions teach thinking skills will come not only from those concerned with academic performance but also from those concerned with economic performance and effective citizenship. While educators can expect little or no improvement in the thinking skills with which students enter school, they can expect demands from outside the educational system that students be proficient in those skills when graduated. (3) Teaching these skills can be done, but the methods for teaching them must take full cognizance of the considerable difficulties inherent in that task. (4) Recommendations are presented for those who make educational policy. (5) Recommendations are made for those who construct or select instructional materials. (6) Recommendations are given for classroom teachers. Five pages of references conclude the report. (AG)