Selbstregulation beim Verstehen von Schulbuchtexten der Biologie auf der Sekundarstufe 1

Textbooks for secondary schools are characterized by elements of technical and academic language and place high demands on learners. For successful text comprehension, text complexity and individual skills need to match up. In school settings it is possible either to simplify texts or to give support to readers. In the following article, three extracts from biology textbooks used at secondary level 1 are presented in order to illustrate the various challenges these texts pose. The emphasis lies on the individual competencies employed by learners when reading biology texts, focusing on selfregulation and comprehension monitoring skills. Using quantitative and qualitative methods the extent to which learners at secondary level can consciously monitor their understanding and react appropriately is examined. Results show that good and poor readers differ in their monitoring skills and that all learners focus primarily on word comprehension, whereas the monitoring of local and global coherence is rarely successful.