New ways of placing parents in the classroom: Literacy gains through parent engagement in the middle years

This article gives focus to the way in which a small shift in pedagogical practice led to gains in literacy learning for middle school students across a year-level cohort. Initially, the article explains the importance of seeing parent engagement differently from its "parent involvement-schoolcentric cousin", and how the space of "doing with" parents can provide a platform for enhanced student learning and, specifically, enhanced student literacy learning. Secondly, it describes a transformed practice at High View College involving a long-standing event for Year 7 students called Gabfest- when parents and significant others are invited to the school to listen to their daughter share a personal anecdote. The article next outlines the profound impact from a tweak in approach, where parents were invited to write their own personal anecdote and share it with their daughter at Gabfest. Decisively, interviews with participants held post-Gabfest indicated that this "learning together" model enabled more-authentic literacy learning derived from its cogenerative process as well as a greater awareness of audience. The article indicates that the parent engagement space is worthy of exploration since inherent in learning "with" their child is the potential to positively impact student learning.