ETC: The Elephant Alphabet Book

Reading is important. It's really important. It's really really important. Reading well above grade level is probably the biggest advantage that you can give your kids in school. It makes every single thing in school easier. I'm never going to promote those teach your baby to read type programs that you see on TV. Those are just silly. What I will always promote is good old fashioned sit down with your kids and learn phonics based reading. Read to them a lot. Teach them their letters. Teach them the letter sounds. Point to the words when you read them and all of that jazz. It's not hard and it's worked for a lot of kids for a very long time. Repetition is important to learning and since you end up reading certain books over and over and over to your kids anyway, you should try and make sure that one of them is an alphabet book. Big letters, not abstract, pretty pictures with them, bright colors. Flip the page and ask them what the letter is. Make the sound. Make sure that the text of the book uses the sounds over and over with a particular letter. The word move becomes MMMMMMMMove when you read it. The word balloon becomes BBBBBBalloon.
We've taught all of our kids their letters and sounds with The Elephant Alphabet Book by Gene Yates. It has worked well, but there is no reason to choose this one over any other. As you can see from the picture, we even got it on super sale at a half priced book store. When the kids are in that two to three and a half range they seem ripe to really learn the alphabet and the sounds. At least 3 or 4 times a week I'd have them pick a book to read and I'd grab the Elephant Alphabet Book and we'd sit down and read them both. It's not structured learning and it doesn't feel like it. It's just reading books. It's interacting with your kid as you point at the letters and say them and them have them repeat them.
I can't stress how important I think it is to teach your kids to read. Imagine a world where all kindergartners could read at a basic level the first day. Imagine a world where all of the six graders could read at a high school level. Think of the savings in teaching time and frustration. Think of the resources that would free up for those kids that truly have learning disabilities and really need extra outside help learning to read. This is a big deal, and all it takes is a book and time on the couch reading it with your child.