...In teaching them how to read...I think.

We started by teaching janelle all her letters...once she knew them really well we taught her 2 or 3 words that start with each one. Then we worked on sounds. Now you can ask her any word and she can show you what letter it starts with. My step dad was trying to screw her up this weekend at Caid's party asking her questions like Latvia, Mongolian, Penelope, etc. and she still got it right every time. So what do we work on next?

Wow! I'm impressed! I don't know the answer, tho'. She's 2 1/2??

What about "sight words" - is, the, if, and, etc.? My dad said he taught me to read at first using those, mainly because the letters had their correct sounds (instead of like of where the f sounds like v, kwim?)

I should of came back here, on the other board jennp said she and logan are working with magnetic letters making word families, like at, cat, bat, sat, mat, etc...so I think that is where we are going to go next. Though, site words are a good idea as well Anne, thanks!

Or you can ask her to look at a picture book and say all the letters of the word T-R-U-C-K and point to the picture: truck. C-A-R, point to the picture: car.

Do you think she WANTS to read on her own? Because if she not showing an interest in reading on her own (picking up books and "reading" them to herself, asking you to sound out words for her, etc.), then I wouldn't push it at ALL, because you don't want it to turn into a power struggle, one in which she loses interest in reading altogether.

If she does seem to be showing reading readiness, I'd start with high frequency sight words, like Anne suggested. I think kids that age are more apt to memorize a whole word, rather than being able to break down words and saying each sound...too time consuming and labor intensive for them, IMO. Maybe you could make up some flash cards with high frequency/high interest words for her...words like Jillian, Caid, your name, husband's name, dog, cat, the, said, boy, girl, car. You could even draw pictures on the card to help jog her memory. Try flipping through them, if she's interested, and then when you see the words in books, have her try to read the recognizable word.

There are some good early readers to buy...books that use these beginning high frequency words (like 1-2 per "book") in real "stories" that move beyond one word per page. Or you could make your own books, and print out pictures, if you can't draw (like me!)

Here's my suggestion for ready made beginner books:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0439577039/103-7608788-7315807?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance