Teacher education in the English as a foreign language context has witnessed a shift from only emphasising expert-generated professional theories to combining such theories with teacher-generated personal theories. However, little is known about whether such a combination is beneficial in preparing pre-service English teachers to teach reading skills. Theoretically informed by the notion of local knowledge, post-transmission and postmodernism, the present multiple-case qualitative study aimed at investigating eight secondary school pre-service English teachers' learning experience (i.e., knowledge gained about expert-generated professional theories) and teaching practice in a "Teaching Reading and Writing" education course (i.e., knowledge of the teacher-generated personal theories). Data was collected and triangulated from multiple sources, including lesson plans, teaching videos and transcripts of these recordings, and the teacher educator's written feedback on both the lesson plans and the teaching. Results revealed that scanning and skimming were two primary reading skills that the pre-service teachers perceived to be significant in teaching English reading. However, there was a mismatch between what they planned to teach and what they actually taught. This mismatch did not necessarily indicate incompetency at teaching but instead reflected their individualised personal theories. Implications for fostering pre-service teachers' autonomy as practitioners were discussed.