Reading in reality changes academic (8)
I believe the answer is:
literary
'academic' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'reading in reality changes' is the wordplay.
'reading' becomes 'r' (one of the traditional three R's of education).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'changes' is an anagram indicator.
'reality' with letters rearranged gives 'literay'.
'r' placed inside 'literay' is 'LITERARY'.
(Other definitions for literary that I've seen before include "Type of writing of artistic merit" , "Relating to books and other writings" , "The scholarly type" , "Indicates writing of artistic value" , "Associated with formal writing" .)