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This study investigated the effect of scaffolding strategy on students’ academic achievement and retention of science-based texts in Benue State, Nigeria. The design was a quasi-experimental, pretest, posttest non-randomised equivalent group design. Purposive sampling technique was used to sample 44 senior secondary one students in two different schools from a population of 10,980 students in the 307 secondary schools in Benue State. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The instruments for data collection were Science Reading Achievement Test (SRAT) and Science Reading Retention Test (SRRT). The SRPT was subjected to trial testing and its reliability coefficient was analysed using Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (K-R 20). This yielded a coefficient of 0.96. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation and the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 significance level using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). It was found that there is no significant difference in the achievement and retention scores of male and senior secondary one students taught reading comprehension of science-based texts using scaffolding strategy. It was recommended that teachers should ensure that both male and female students benefit equally when they use scaffolding strategy and that no gender should be given undue advantage, since the strategy improved the academic achievement and retention of both male and female students.