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By CATHERINE PAGLIN
PORTLAND, Oregon- On a November afternoon, a kindergarten teacher intones a fall poem to the class standing before her. Caught by the magical language, the children lift their arms-they waft and sway, leaflike, on a silent, inevitable autumn journey:
Little leaves fall gently down
The repetition, the rhythm, the rhyme, and above all, the reverent hush in Susan Scarino's voice, calm a class that only minutes before had been hastily cleaning up after a noisy craft project. "Now quietly as those leaves are falling down," says Scarino, still in hushed tones, "let's go over there and sit by the calendar." With 27 years of teaching behind her, Scarino knows how to set a mood and smooth the way from one activity to the next. She knows how to hold students' attention, praise their accomplishments and good behavior, and give them ways to resolve conflicts. But despite her skill, a few of Scarino's little leaves resist coming to rest. While most kindergartners grow to accept school rules and routines, some consistently behave in ways that stand out-ignoring directions, not doing seat work, not paying attention, defying the teacher, making loud noises, not getting along with other children. For these kindergartners, a short-term program-First Step to Success-which draws on parents and classmates for support, can help them make a quick turnaround and, experts believe, avoid more serious antisocial behaviors and academic failure down the road. "Alicia just spent the first week or two of school pretty much screaming, just not able to sit still, and upset and yelling out all the time, and not waiting her turn, constantly wanting my attention. And all she could do was scribble on paper," says Scarino, describing a girl just beginning the First Step program. "She wasn't able to focus on me, on the class, on what we were doing." Some teachers with students like Alicia think they don't have time to implement a new program in the classroom. Not so, say First Step developers and consultants, because a teacher with a disruptive or aggressive student is already spending a disproportionate amount of time on that child. A teacher using First Step is still working hard, but he or she will go home at night feeling good, instead of discouraged, says Dr. Annemieke Golly, First Step coordinator and teacher trainer at the University of Oregon's Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior. After two and a half months of school Alicia's behavior has improved greatly, but she still stands out. She often yells, ignores or forgets directions, and leaves activities or the room when she feels like it. She makes big demands on Scarino's attention. "She still hasn't gotten used to the fact that she's one person out of 20, and she needs constant reinforcement that she's OK and that she's doing well and that she's on task," the teacher says. Unable to give Alicia as much one-on-one attention as she needs and faced with continuing disruption that is hard on the other children, Scarino selected Alicia and her guardians, with their agreement, to participate in First Step. Offered at two Portland schools through a federal Safe and Drug-Free Schools grant, the program is administered through the district's prevention office. The program was developed in Eugene, Oregon, during the early- to mid-1990s under a U.S. Department of Education grant as a collaborative effort between the Eugene School District and several Eugene-based organizations-the Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior, the Oregon Social Learning Center, and the Oregon Research Institute. Before Alicia's first day in the program, a First Step consultant lays the groundwork: She observes Alicia in the classroom several times, she role plays the program with her out in the hall, and she explains it to Alicia's guardians and classmates. If the child is having behavior problems at school, there's a good chance similar problems happen at home, notes Christina Newton, First Step consultant with Portland Public Schools. Most parents are eager to have their child participate. "They usually go nuts," she says. "Their kid gets that one-on-one attention, special attention. They love the idea." Parent Julie Patterson, whose son, Jacob, went through the program last year, admits that initially she felt embarrassed about her son's behavior. But the first meeting with Newton took that feeling away. "There weren't any secrets about it at all," Patterson says. "It was just all out in the open, and plain and simple." Plain and simple also describes how First Step works in the classroom. For the first five days, the consultant does the intervention. On Alicia's first day, Newton works with her for 20 minutes. On a string around her neck, Newton wears a card that is green on one side, red on the other. She sits near the teacher where Alicia can always see her. When Alicia does well-sits where Scarino asks her to, listens and participates during a calendar lesson, and stays in line with her hands to herself during a fire drill-Newton displays the green side; when Alicia's attention wanders from the calendar lesson, Newton flips the card to the red side. This visual system cuts out contentiousness. "It's informational. There's no arguing, there's no debate -'He did it, I didn't do it, he made me,'" says Elka Turner, a teacher who is using First Step at Chapman Elementary School, across town from Clinton Kelly Elementary, where Scarino teaches. Along with the visual cue cards, there's an auditory prompt to remind the teacher to check the child's behavior. When the prompt-a sound from a computer-goes off, the teacher notes what the child is doing and keeps a tally, making a hatch mark on either the red or green side of the card. On the first day, because the child needs to experience success, Newton is prompted to mark the card approximately every 30 seconds. At the end of the 20 minutes, Alicia earns 39 out of 40 points, seven more than she needs to earn a reward of her choice for the entire class. Offered options such as stickers, treats, extra play time, or a special activity, Alicia chooses to hand out Tootsie Rolls, for which her classmates thank her. Motivated in part by the rewards, the child's classmates are drawn in. "Whenever 'ka-ching' [the sound of the computer prompt] goes off, you check on him," explains a boy whose classmate is in the program. "If he's doing good, the teacher writes that he's doing good. When she doesn't hear it, someone tells her. We have to help her." Children are told they can help the First Step child earn points by attending to their own work, playing well with others, and praising and thanking the child for good behavior while ignoring other behavior. The child's parents are also involved in the classroom portion of the program. After Alicia's first day, Newton calls home with a reminder to Alicia's guardian to look at the red-green card, sign it, return it to Alicia's backpack, praise Alicia, and reward her with some special one-on-one time together, such as reading a story or going for a walk. This activity is to be recorded on the card, just as the teacher records the child's choice of a school reward. "We want the child to know that the parent likes it that they're following directions at school," says Golly. Sending the card back and forth ensures that the teacher feels supported by the parents and the parents feel supported by the school, she says. "This is truly a collaborative effort." (See the sidebar on Page 16 for more programs that involve parents in maintaining peaceful schools and classrooms.) If the child fails to earn enough points for a reward, the card still goes home. In this case, says Newton, "Mom can see he didn't earn his points. She thanks the child for bringing it home, signs it, has him put it in his backpack, and that's the end of it. You don't say another word about it. You don't dwell on it. His consequence was he didn't get a reward for the class and he didn't have special time with Mom and Dad." "He knew why he got red," says Christine Willard, whose son Michael went through First Step last year. "He wasn't punished or anything, but he learned from it." Through the red-green card system, all the important people in a child's life-parents, teacher, peers-consistently give him more attention for appropriate classroom behaviors and less attention for antisocial behaviors. Golly boils it down to a simple principle: "You give the child a lot of attention for the things you want to see happen." After five days, the teacher takes over the consultant's role, wearing the cards, listening for the computer cue, and tallying points for behavior. As the child improves, the daily intervention period lengthens and the prompts and rewards become less frequent.
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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
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