I suppose it would be mostly practical skills, cooking, fixing things. Usually had to be done by people themselves.
Maybe also mental things like navigating (with or without paper map) and remembering their daily and weekly agendas.
What other things would be a big difference with the people today?
But what are they reading? Being a better reader or writer is only as good as the information exchanged. Is it memes? Clips? How about per capita?
Yeah, it’s possible people are reading more crap now. Although there was definitely less-than-highbrow literature around then, as well.