I'm able both to read and to type in "day residue" dreams: those that are primarily based on prior events while awake. I've often had dreams which involve me reading and posting to internet message boards.

For dreams occurring on a deeper, more symbolic level, I haven't had the same experience, though I couldn't say whether that means I can't read in those dreams, or only that I haven't remembered doing so.

Perhaps individual circumstances matter. I was hyperlexic in childhood and to this day my preferred learning style consists of reading and/or rote copying, which I've learned is unusual.

I am not sure about reading, but writing is impossible for me, in dreams. When I write something, and I read it again, I see that I actually wrote something else. So I try to correct it, and again it is wrong; and that is very frustrating. Doing calculations, even as simple as counting my fingers, is also impossible.

From what I read online on topic of lucid dreaming, different people have different "abilities" and "disabilities" in dreams, but some of them are rather common (for example the inability to count one's fingers). If you make a habit of testing these skills a few times a day, it may help you notice when you are dreaming.

I can't help you there. Not enough detail has survived the years.

That's a very common claim; but it runs counter to my own experience in dreaming.