A study examined the effects of sex-typed content and sex role preference on 87 fifth grade boys' and 64 fifth grade girls' reading material preferences. It also explored how high- and low-rated sex-typed reading content and students' sex and sex role preferences influenced reading comprehension. After reading the sex-typed content, which consisted of two stories about male pilots and two stories about female dancers, subjects responded to like-dislike scales and accompanying multiple-choice comprehension tests. Two-way and three-way ANOVAs were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that children (1) who might be identified as having different sex role preferences showed similar like-dislike reactions and comprehension levels when reading sex-typed content; (2) preferred reading sex-appropriate content, (3) comprehended sex-typed material with equal competency, and (4) were affected only minimally by reader preference for content when reading sex-typed content. (Appendixes include samples of reading materials and evaluation instruments.) (HTH)