Understanding the polycode schoolbook text as a component of modern educational reading in inclusive primary education: A theoretical review

Abstract

The research aims to provide insight into the discussion about the role of understanding a polycode schoolbook text in educational reading for modern primary pupils in an inclusive environment. The main trends in the development of the issue are analyzed in terms of comparing models of old and new generation schoolbooks that implement the function of understanding educational material within different educational paradigms. The paper shows how the shift in the latter in the Russian education system of the late 20th – early 21st centuries contributed to the emergence of new modifications of reading, simultaneously influencing the changing role of the schoolbook in modeling special conditions relevant to the educational capabilities and special educational needs of students with disabilities in an inclusive environment. The material of the paper makes it possible to assess the need to modernize educational reading by improving the quality of understanding the polycode schoolbook text, which meets the demands of modern inclusive educational practice. The scientific novelty of the material is determined by the author’s position in interpreting the schoolbook as a polycode educational text, whose potential of understanding is realized through educational reading. The result of the presented review is the idea that improving the quality of understanding the schoolbook by students is possible provided that the entire inclusive educational process, and most importantly, the principles of its organization, are oriented towards abandoning the monologic educational environment built solely around the schoolbook, in favor of establishing a methodically sound, and therefore accessible to different categories of students, infrastructure for educational reading, with a specially elaborated system for developing understanding of the polycode educational text (schoolbook) among students in an inclusive environment.