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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

Frank B. Withrow, Ph.D.

President
Able Learning Company
A Better Learning Experience Company
232 E Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002-4923
202 547 8078   FAX 202 546 6059
FrankWithrow@PhonicsPicks.com

Dr. Withrow has been a classroom teacher, elementary supervisor, researcher, and an educational administrator. As the Director of Research and Clinical Services in The Department of Children and Family Services in the State of Illinois he developed a parent pupil program for deaf infants and their parents. His research includes electro-physiological testing of hearing in infants, paired associate learning, immediate visual memory spans, and the uses of programmed 3-D computer generated lessons.

Dr. Withrow was the Director of Educational Programs for the NASA Classroom of the Future from 1996 to 1998. He served in the U.S. Department of Education from 1966 to 1992 as the Senior Learning Technologist.  He administered technology programs for the disabled including Captioned Films for the Deaf where he developed captioning techniques for television.  In addition he funded the development of reading machines for blind people.  He was the Executive Director of the National Advisory Committee for Handicapped in 1975 at the time P.L. 94-142 was passed.  He served as the Secretary’s Liaison for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute for Technology, Gallaudet University, and the Model Secondary School for the Deaf.

As a Senior Battelle Memorial Fellow he studied the influence of electronic media on child growth and development.  He developed a demonstration of interactive cable television programs and edited a book on the influence of television on child growth and development.

He was the program manager for the Department’s television series including Sesame Street, Footsteps a series on child growth and development for parents and The Voyages of the Mimi, a multiple media elementary science and mathematics series.   He also directed bilingual television programming that included Hispanics, French, Native Americans, Asians, and Afro-Americans themes. All programs included captions. 

He was the Director of Technology for the Young Astronaut Council where he developed an on-line series of lessons for students and teachers.

He developed and managed the Star School distance-learning program for the U. S. Department of Education. He represented the United States of America as a learning technologist at a number of world conferences, i.e. OECD, UNESCO, and the Council of Europe.

Dr. Withrow has worked as an adjunct professor at Washington University, St. Louis, MO, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, IL, and Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

He has received many honors and awards including the United States Distance Learning Association’s Leadership award.  He is a member of USDLA’s Hall of Fame.  He has edited several books and written more than 300 professional articles.  He has made numerous presentations and speeches including keynote addresses at professional conferences.  He has more than 200 video and film credits.

He was on the Board of the Northern Panhandle Head Start Program, Wheeling, WV.  He was a member of the National Board for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at the Rochester Institute for Technology.  He was a Board member of the Consortium on School Networking (CoSN). The CoSN annual educator award is named the Frank Withrow Award for Excellence.

He was the Program Manager for two one-hour television specials on the "World of Work" which were designed to help youth and other people seeking employment understand the modern clusters of jobs and the training required to obtain such jobs.  He was an advisory to the District of Columbia Public Schools multimedia project on developing employability skills for youth. He serves as an advisory to a District of Columbia School Board Member.

He received his BS in Education of the Deaf, MS in Speech and Hearing and a Ph.D. in Audiology from Washington University in St. Louis.  He holds Advanced Clinical Certification in both Speech and Hearing from the American Speech and Hearing Association.