Teaching Children to Read

I think teaching children to read is one of the most frustrating yet ultimately rewarding things I have ever done.  I have successfully taught one child to read and am in the process of teaching two more to read.  All three have had totally different learning styles and different abilities.  Today as I sat on the couch through two very different reading lessons I was thinking about this process and felt like blogging about it.  First was Joe's lesson.  Joe has been a very good reader for his age but can be frustrating to teach.  He is a sight reader all the way and doesn't like to have to sound anything out.  He would rather me tell him the word--or help him sound it out and then he has a very good memory for that word.  He prides himself on how short of a moment he can spend looking at the word before "reading" it.  If it's a word he's not fully familiar with he will start spouting out random words that it could be based on the millisecond he saw of it.  Can I just say that this is AGGRAVATING!!!!  Right now I am using "The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading," and each lessons introduces some new phonetic rule or letter sound, the child reads a list of words and then reads a short story that includes what they learned that day comboed with what they already know.  So, after we get through the list, he flies through the story without pausing to sound out anything.  He doesn't always remember the words the next day though and we have to review.  Now Grace is the exact opposite but still frustrating sometimes.  She sounds out EVERYTHING!!  Even "is" some days.  Her sight word vocabulary is increasing but she still relies mostly on sounding out.  One of the things she does that I have to remind her not to do is to start by looking at only the first letter, then the second, then the third.  So if she is reading "street" for example.  She will say "s," then "st," then "str" and so on.  I have to remind her to look at the whole word and see if she knows it then look for digraphs (I think that's what they are officially called) and look for silent e's, etc.  When I remind her of this her reading goes much smoother.  We are slowly making progress and I yearn for the day when all my children are good solid readers.  I am always jealous of people who have kids who just taught themselves to read.  I've heard a few of these stories and it always baffles me.  How does that happen?  I have read to my kids since they were babies and they live in a house full of books so it's more than just that.  Anyway, I thought I'd list some of the resources that I have found invaluable as I have taught and continue to teach reading--

• Some sort of guide for how to progress through phonics.  I have used Reading Reflex and now The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading.  
• Explode the Code workbooks--I have always used these at a level just below where they are reading fairly comfortably.  That way it isn't too difficult but reinforces what they have mostly mastered.
• 100 Words Kids Need to Read by First Grade.  This is a Scholastic book and I love it.  It's full of pages and pages of brightly colored, widely varied worksheets that goes through the  main sight words.  I am about to buy it for Joe, I think he's ready for it now.  This book really helped Hannah make the jump from sounding everything out to having a large sight word vocabulary.
• Sight word bingo--love it!  It reinforces those sight words in a fun way.  
• Flash cards--again for building a sight word vocabulary.