Reading is life. If 80% of man's activity involves reading, (Villamin 1994) then students be made conscious on what type and how the reading materials be chosen for personal and academic purpose. This study which utilized the descriptive-normative survey method aimed to find out the reading preferences and their effects to reading performance of the first year students in both Bachelor of Secondary and Bachelor of Elementary Education programs of Cebu Normal University. These were treated using the simple percentage and ranking with the Minitab software. Using the ranking, findings revealed that most of the students in the Bachelor in Elementary Education highly preferred the dictionary. This is followed by the newspapers, magazines, short stories, etc. On the other hand, the students in the Bachelor in Secondary Education students highly preferred the encyclopedia. This is followed by the magazines, short stories, textbooks, etc. Moreover, it is noted that there is no relationship between the students' reading preferences and their performance in reading. It means that their reading preferences do not have bearing nor effect on their reading performance. It is therefore concluded that reading is a personal responsibility. It is a matter of how one comprehends, analyzes, applies and creates new ideas from the written texts regardless of their preferences that leads them to develop critical thinking needed for them to function effectively in the society.