The views of three groups of educators regarding their ratings of the importance of individual competencies for reading specialists were investigated. The importance of selected modes used for helping reading specialists acquire these competencies were also studied. Data were gathered through the use of two rating instruments: the Competency Rating Scale and the Mode of Acquistion Rating Scale, and from randomly selected groups of elementary school principals, college professors of reading, and reading specialists. Some of the null hypotheses which were rejected were that these three groups of educators do not differ in their ratings of each of the selected reading specialist competencies and the three groups do not differ in their ratings of each of the selected modes of acquiring each selected competency. Based on the results of the study, recommendations were made for the Pennsylvania educational system--one of which was that the clarification of the reading specialist's role in the school needs to be realized. (Author/TS)