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Phonic Picks Demo lesson
About the Developers
About Frank B. Withrow

Documents:
A Phonic Picks Story:
"Eloise the Little Pink Elephant"
(in english and spanish)
By Frank B. Withrow

Why Johnny Can't Read
1: "I Have Touched the Future, I Teach"
2: Digital Generation
3: Attention Deficits

ABOUT the DEVELOPERS

Frank B. Withrow, Ph.D.

Margaret S. Withrow, Ph.D.

    Dr. Frank B. Withrow has fifty years or more of experience in early childhood education and technology.  Dr. Margaret S. Withrow has been an occupational therapist, teacher of deaf children, speech pathologist, director of teacher development and an instructional designer for adult educational programs.

    Both Margaret and Frank studied under Mildred A. McGinnis; the developer of the Association Method designed to provide rehabilitation for aphasic adults and children.  The design of these programs is a derivative of the Association Method.

    First Steps is based upon the Withrow's education and experience. Frank was the program manager in the U. S. Department of Education for the development of "Sesame Street" and also supported some work on "Mister Roger's Neighborhood."  He has worked in the support of Head Start programs.  He was a Senior Battelle Memorial Fellow studying the influence of technology on child growth and development. Margaret S. Withrow was a principal teacher in a Parent Pupil program for young deaf children in the State of Illinois.  She worked with infants as young as six months and their parents to develop a foundation for speech and language.  She developed computer animated auditory training 3D computer generated videotapes with Charles Csuri of Ohio State University when she was at Gallaudet University.

    The Withrows have four children of their own and a foster son from Ghana.  They have twelve grandchildren and twin great granddaughters. In addition, the Withrows boarded a boy who lost his hearing at age five and a girl who was aphasic in order to understand the needs of such children and to experience the influence of such children in a family.  The Withrows have had a living laboratory in their home working with children and grandchildren as they grow and learn.  All of the Withrow children have entered some level of work in education.

Frank's father was orthopedically handicapped and used a crutch all of his life.  His younger brother is deaf, as are his brother's wife and their two sons.  The Withrows have had a first hand experience in working with disabled people and in observing the growth and development of all children.

Both Frank and Margaret have represented the United States of America at International meetings on the application of technology to learning especially in the areas of science education.

Frank and Margaret have often worked together as a team to write articles, books, television programs, and computer programs.

The First Steps and Phonic Picks programs are designed to be engaging and theoretically sound early childhood programs that lead to early literacy skills.  The developers believe that young children are interested in engaging and whimsical stories and games.  From "Eloise the Little Elephant" to "Nat the Cat" and "Little Harvey Long" stories the characters do a number of interesting things that the reader can interact with as they read. The reader can activate audio reading when needed as they work through the lessons. Each lesson is short in duration and designed so that there is a maximum level of achievement.  Only correct responses are active areas of the screen. We believe strongly that there is little reason to give a youngster a negative feedback when they make a mistake. In this sense we believe the best policy is to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.

The program is designed so that if a child likes a particular story, he or she may print it out and have it as their own book for their home library.

Games and puzzles are important parts of growing up.  In the days before television, radio and other mass media programs and of course computers; families helped mold the thinking of their children through memory games. Therefore we have developed computerized forms of these thinking games that even young children can play.

We welcome feedback on these programs.
You can reach Dr. Frank B. Withrow at ABLE2READ@phonicpicks.com.

Frank B. Withrow, Ph.D. & Margaret S. Withrow, Ph.D.