Nope. Reading skills are improved by being challenged by complex language, and the effort required to learn new words to comprehend it. If the reader is interested in the content, they aren’t going to skip it. Dumbing things down only leads to dumbing things down.

For example, look at all the iPad kids who can’t use a computer for shit. Kids who grew up with computers HAD to learn the more complex interface of computers to be able to do the cool things they wanted to do on the computer. Now they don’t because they don’t have to. Therefore if you get everything dumbed down to 5th Grade reading level, that’s where the common denominator will settle. Overcoming that apathy requires a challenge to be a barrier to entry.