This study sought to investigate the influence of reading habits on the learners’ academic performance in literature; a case study of Jinja secondary school, Jinja city”. The objectives were; to investigate the reading habits of students of Jinja Senior Secondary School, to find out the types of materials they read and their purposes for reading, to find out the perception of students on reading habits and academic performance in Literature and the factors that affect their reading habits. The findings indicated that more respondents 59.5% strongly agreed, 35.9% agreed and 1.5% disagreed with the statement that “reading has improved their ability to understand”, the majority of respondents 61.8% strongly agreed, 32.1% agreed and 3.1% disagreed that reading has improved their written English, 49.6% strongly agreed with the statement that their spoken English has been improved, 44.3% agreed and 1.5% disagrees with it. A little over 40.0% of the respondents agree, 38.9% strongly agreed and 6.9% disagreed with the statement number 4 that reading has broadened their horizon. Similarly, more respondents 47.3% strongly agreed, 43.5% agreed and 1.5% disagreed with the statement number 5 that reading has improved their performance in examinations. Multi-stage sampling technique, which involves simple random sampling, was used to arrive at the sample size of 131 respondents. Quantitative data was analyzed using the Statistical Packages of Social Sciences (SPSS) version 11.5 while qualitative data was analyzed and presented thematically. The school librarian should regularly weed out outmoded materials from the library’s collection. When this is done, the students will be better encouraged to patronize the library.