Science performance is highly affected by students' reading comprehension. Recently, there has been a growing attention to the role of linguistic features for science performance, but findings are ambivalent, especially when looking into item word count. The aim of this study was to investigate the interaction of students' reading comprehension and item word count of given science measures on performance, controlling for students' cognitive abilities, gender, family language, and school track. The sample consisted of N = 2051 German students in grades 10 and 11. Students completed (scientific) literacy measures. We then applied a multilevel logistic regression to investigate the hypothesized interaction effect of reading comprehension and word count on students' science performance. The results showed a significant interaction of students' reading comprehension and word count on science performance, controlling for several covariates. Particularly students with high reading comprehension benefit from science items with increasing word count. Our findings empirically support previous research, showing that reading comprehension is crucial for science performance and enhances the interaction between reading comprehension and linguistic features of written text in science subjects. Finally, theoretical and practical implications and limitations of this study are discussed.

Previous research illustrated that reading comprehension and science performance correlate highly. Because students with specific learning disorders with impairments in reading (SLD-IR) show deficits in reading comprehension, they may struggle to perform in science. As language in science is characterized by linguistic complexity, the question arises whether students with SLD-IR can be supported by reducing linguistic complexity. The aim of this preregistered study was to investigate whether students with SLD-IR benefit more from linguistic simplification in science than their peers without SLD-IR. The sample consisted of 70 students (age, M = 12.67; 50% female) with n = 35 having SLD-IR. Applying a multilevel logistic regression model, we found neither a main effect of linguistic simplification nor an interaction effect (differential boost) on science performance. However, students with SLD-IR performed significantly lower in science. Implications include further investigation on how to support students with SLD-IR in their science performance.

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Analyzing texts and items regarding their linguistic features might be important for researchers to investigate the effects of the linguistic presentation as well as for practitioners to estimate the readability of a text or an item. The Linguistic Analyzer for Text and Item Characteristics (LATIC) is a software that enables users to analyze texts and items more efficiently. LATIC offers a multitude of features at three different reading levels and can be used for texts and items in four different languages: English, French, German, and Spanish. It is open source, free to use and designed to be user-friendly. In this study, we investigated LATIC’s performance: LATIC achieves highly accurate results, while being extremely time saving compared to human raters. While developing LATIC, the respective features are tested continuously to ensure a high accuracy of results in the future.

Prior research has examined the impact of different cognitive predictors on students’ expository and narrative text comprehension. It has become apparent that some cognitive variables predict text comprehension in both genres, while some are genre-specific predictors. However, the effect of reading motivation on expository and narrative text comprehension remains unclear. Thus, the aim was to investigate which reading-related cognitive and motivational characteristics predict universal versus genre-specific text comprehension. The sample consisted of 261 eighth graders (age: M = 14.96; 37.9% girls). Applying path modeling, the results showed that students’ vocabulary was a significant predictor of text comprehension in both genres. Furthermore, reading strategy knowledge predicted text comprehension of a narrative and an expository text. Reading for interest predicted text comprehension in two of three expository texts. Identifying these universal and genre-specific characteristics of text comprehension can enable teachers to foster students’ text comprehension by targeting these specific skills.