A crowd of happy students greeting the camera in a North Plainfield school hallway

The evidence behind The First Five

Every component of The First Five puts a research-backed practice to work in the first five minutes of class. Here is what that research says, and what it looks like in real classrooms.

Backed by 76 peer-reviewed sources · Read the full research review →
575,361
K–12 students in the 2023 meta-analysis behind the daily practices The First Five draws on
Cipriano et al. 2023 · 424 studies[66]
+11 pts
Percentile gain in academic achievement for students in programs built on the same foundation
Durlak et al. 2011 · 270,034 students[64]
94–97%
Of surveyed teachers say The First Five improves teacher-student relationships
Bowser 2026 doctoral study[76]
⅔
Less disruptive behavior when class begins with a greeting at the door
Cook et al. 2018 · randomized study[8]

Why the first five minutes matter

Strong relationships are the foundation kids learn on, and the research is clear about how to build them: greet students by name, ask real questions, notice how they arrive, and start the day with something positive. The First Five turns those practices into a simple five-minute routine that any teacher can run every morning.

Randomized trials on greetings, check-ins, and daily connection routines show more engagement, fewer disruptions, and stronger teacher-student relationships. Large research reviews covering more than 575,000 students connect these daily practices to better behavior, healthier school climate, and real academic gains. And in the first study of The First Five itself, 94 to 97% of surveyed teachers said the practice improves their relationships with students. Want the details? Read the full research review, with every finding and all 76 sources.

What the research looks like in real schools

Two of our partner communities opened their doors and their data. These are their classrooms, their educators, and their numbers.

Principal Tyler Jones and Alan Krenek from Edtomorrow observing a student-led Power Circle at Rocky Mountain Elementary
Principal Tyler Jones with a student-led Power Circle at Rocky Mountain Elementary

Rocky Mountain Elementary: from the bottom third to #3

Rocky Mountain made belonging the strategy and paired it with their own metrics. The campus climbed from the bottom third of district rankings to #3, gaining 10 to 20 points a year where typical district movement is 1 to 2. Discipline referrals fell, staff turnover collapsed from 16 new hires in a year to a handful, and the school absorbed 109 new students, over 20% of enrollment, with zero disruption.

"You can walk into our building and feel it. There is joy here, from top to bottom."
Tyler Jones, Principal, Rocky Mountain Elementary
Read the Rocky Mountain case study →
Students and their teacher sitting in a discussion circle in a North Plainfield classroom
A classroom circle in the North Plainfield School District, where relationship routines run districtwide

North Plainfield: relationships as a system, districtwide

North Plainfield took daily connection routines from pockets of practice to a district commitment. In the last year, chronic absenteeism dropped about 3%, detentions fell 8%, and overall student incidents declined 5%.

"Some of the kids who typically aren't vocal now have an opportunity to share."
Filipe Luis, Assistant Superintendent, North Plainfield School District
Read the North Plainfield case study →

The research behind each component

Every part of the daily routine puts a studied practice to work. Each example below is a real activity from The First Five, paired with the headline finding behind it. Follow any link for the full findings, direct quotes, and citations.

Memes

Content-connected humor sustains attention, builds teacher-student rapport, and increases willingness to participate.

See the research →

Questions

Graduated shallow-to-deep question routines build closeness faster than small talk, and asking questions makes the asker better liked.

See the research →

At-the-Door Greetings

In a randomized study, starting class with a greeting at the door raised engagement about 20 points and cut disruptive behavior by two-thirds.

See the research →

Quick Connects

Discovering similarities improves relationships and grades, and choice-based prompts boost intrinsic motivation, strongest in children.

See the research →

Check-Ins

Naming emotions calms the brain's threat response, and teaching emotion words in school improves behavior and academics.

See the research →

Mindfulness

Meta-analyses across dozens of trials show benefits for attention, stress, and behavior. Ten minutes a day improved 3rd graders' reading and science grades.

See the research →

Positivity

Positive-experience activities reliably raise wellbeing, and kind acts in classrooms boost both wellbeing and peer acceptance.

See the research →

Quotes

Character education works across 64 studies and 96,930 students, and brief values reflection produces benefits that last.

See the research →

Videos

Short prosocial videos increase prosocial behavior and empathy, and work best when paired with a follow-up conversation.

See the research →

The whole routine, together

Small daily doses of deliberate relationship-building improve behavior and engagement in randomized trials, and students who feel connected to school do better on nearly every measure.

See the research →
A teacher greeting a student with a handshake in the North Plainfield School District
"You can't tell who's always been here. The new students tell us: 'My old school didn't do this.'"
Vickie Cooper, Assistant Principal, Rocky Mountain Elementary

The first study of The First Five itself

Bowser 2026, Neumann University doctoral dissertation[76]

A comparative case study of two districts (about 6,900 students combined), each with a year-plus of districtwide elementary implementation, built on 12 teacher interviews, 89 surveys, and document review.

94–97%
of teachers said The First Five improves teacher-student relationships
89–95%
said it supports student belonging
12
in-depth teacher interviews across the two districts
"I no longer spend the first twenty minutes trying to calm everyone down… The First Five does that work."
Participating teacher
"It's not a one-time thing. They trust it because it happens every morning."
Participating teacher
Read the full findings in the research review →

Want to go deeper?

The full research review walks through every component finding by finding, with direct quotes from each study and all 76 peer-reviewed sources linked in the open.

Explore the full research review

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