Learning to read is one of the biggest milestones in a child's life. It opens up whole new worlds to them. It changes the dynamic of a "bedtime story". It gives them self-confidence. Provides them with an activity that is WAY better for their intellectual development than watching tv or playing video games.

I learned to read at age 3. I grew up in Toronto, Canada where they have 2 kindergarten levels (Junior and Senior). Because of where my birth date fell in the year and when their cutoff date is, I was actually 2 months shy of my fourth birthday when I started school. And yes I could already read. My son has been 4 for four months, this is his second full year of preschool, and he still can't go to kindergarten for another full school year. He will be 2 months shy of six years old by the time he enters school. This seems CRAZY to me! I discovered there is not a lot I can do about getting him to start early, so I decided I would not wait to teach him beginning reading and math skills.

I'm proud to say that he is just now FINALLY getting the hang of reading! We have been working on letter recognition and sounds for a long time, and he seemed to just get stuck there. But finally I borrowed some early reader books from the library and decided to just really focus on putting the sounds together to form words. And it WORKED!

The Bob Books are the first ones that my son was actually able to read. Each book focuses on one vowel sound and uses a lot of rhyming words. The short vowels are still pretty hard for him so it's really nice to have whole sets of words that all sound the same.

The Phonics First Steps books have a little more in depth stories.  There are trickier words in each story that don't follow an exact pattern.  My son could read most of the words but would get frustrated when he would come to one that was different and he would just guess at the word and then get mad.  I think these will be great when he has had a little more practice.

The Ladybird Key Words series is an old set of British readers that I used when I was young.  My son loves to read these books as they are very repetitive so he is quickly able to read the whole story.  Some of the words are more challenging but the pictures help a lot.  I love these books!