| Sumario: | Open Educational Resources (OER) aim to provide equal access to education. Yet, as the language level used in OER presents a barrier to many learners, there is a need to make these resources more comprehensible. This study combined eye‐tracking methodology and comprehension assessment to explore the effect of text simplification on English second language (L2) users, while also accounting for text organizational structure and individual predispositions. A total of 37 adult English L2 users took part in the study. They had to read either an authentic narrative, authentic expository OER or their linguistically simplified versions. The analysis showed that simplification led to better text comprehension, and text narrativity facilitated text recall, particularly at lower English proficiency levels. Eye‐tracking measures revealed that text simplification led to an increase in processing time during the initial reading of the text and a decrease in processing time during text re‐inspection. These findings have strong practical applications for online teaching with OER. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Open Educational Resources (OER) aim to increase access to education to all.Language level of OER in English was found to be very difficult, particularly to English L2 users.Text simplification that reduces the difficulty level of OER to English L2 users might be a potential solution.There is a lack of research that controls for the type of texts, individual predispositions and uses diverse behavioural measures to explore the effect of text simplification on English L2 users. What this paper adds: Text simplification led to better text comprehension, and text narrativity facilitated text recall, particularly at lower English proficiency levels.Text simplification slowed down processing during the initial reading of the text, and sped up processing during text re‐inspection.Final sentences, which were the likely locations for the integration of text information, received extended overall processing time in the simplified condition.Language proficiency played an important role both in text comprehension and text processing. Implications for practice and/or policy: Linguistic simplification of an OER text where possible – using higher frequency lexis, splitting long sentences, avoiding passive voice – benefits English L2 users, particularly at lower proficiency levels.There should be more narrative elements and cohesive links within and between sentences in the academic texts and OER, as these structures seem to be retained in readers' memory longer.OER publishers and material designers should be motivated to include the possibility for OER learners to access a simplified version of the OER materials
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