Core literacy is the core cultivation goal of the current high school English curriculum, and its requirements related to thinking quality are highly in line with the cultivation of critical thinking. This paper first explores the logical connection between the four dimensions of core literacy and critical thinking, clarifying the educational value of cultivating critical thinking in English reading teaching. Secondly, by combining specific teaching cases, it proposes practical paths that can be implemented from three aspects: creating problem scenarios, guiding text deconstruction, and organizing diverse dialogues. Finally, it builds multi-dimensional assessment indicators to analyze the problems existing in current teaching, such as the lack of students' questioning awareness, the imbalance of teachers' guidance scales, and the insufficient adaptability of texts, and provides corresponding optimization directions. The research results can provide a reference for the upgrading of educational value in high school English reading teaching and promote the regular cultivation of students' critical thinking.