They say pamphlets such as Common Sense were widely read and very popular, but how did people have time to read it? Not only was it really long, but the language seems a bit abstruse. Was that considered normal language, or did they think it to be very hard to follow?
Additionally, was literacy emphasized in education? Did people who didn't attend school due to costs learn reading on their own? Could they have followed the wording of Common Sense?
So, this really depends on where in colonial America you are talking about. It's really important to understand that there were deep geographical differences in colonial America. In New England, during the eighteenth century, the literacy rates were upward of 90%. This has a lot to do with the Puritan influence in New England, which required that everyone be able to read the Bible. The literacy rate in the South was lower, being around 80% in South Carolina, for instance. This does not include slaves, however, so if you are including the entire population, the numbers are lower. So, most people probably would have been able to read the pamphlets you're talking about.
Many people, however, may not have actually read it. Colonial America was still very rural and agricultural, which meant that it took a little while for literature to penetrate into the countryside. And the language may well have been obtuse to most people. By and large, these pamphlets were directed at what we might think of as the middle and upper classes, which were in the minority then as they are today. It's a mistake to think that, just because they may not have read it, people weren't familiar with the ideas. People were talking about these issues at the common level.
There is an argument, however, that the ideology of the revolution was not as influential in kicking of the whole thing as the economic problems. Woody Holton has argued that the elite of Virginia, like Washington and Jefferson, didn't really want a revolution, but were pushed into it by the lower classes. Essentially, the new taxes and laws that Great Britain passed hit the lower classes disproportionately hard, and that the lower classes were the ones really pushing for revolt, rather than the idealistic upper class. While I personally find his argument incredibly persuasive, there's little doubt that the revolutionary ideals trickled down to all levels of society. There's even quite a bit of evidence that the American Revolutionary ideas even got as far as the slaves in Haiti.
Sources: F. W. Grubb, "Growth of Literacy in Colonial America," Woody Holton, Forced Founders, T. H. Breen, Marketplace for Revolution.