This whole conversation reminds me of some games I used to play with my elder son when he was a little younger than this. I made flash cards with animal names on them (or other things like play fruit). Then I would put the animals all around the room and give him the flash cards with the names and he would race to put the card with the right animal. Or you could do it the other way and lay the cards out on the floor and have him help the animals "find their home". We also made a game with word endings and beginnings called "phonics concentration". You have all the endings on one side and the beginnings on the other and you pick one of each and sound them out. If it's a word you keep it if it's not a real word you leave them.

I agree with Korrale, and not worry about the output until 2.5-3. If you are not certain that he still knows the letter sounds, I would run through the flash cards at meal or potty time or consider playing the Letter factory DVD once a week or at least the end song where they list the letters and the sounds. If you are sure he knows them well, then I would focus on the readingbear approach (maybe in combination readingeggs with you mousing?). Sometimes for really active little guys like that doing a bunch of things for a few minutes each is best (so maybe something scripted like The Ordinary Parent's guide to Teaching Reading for 5 minutes, then later 1/2 of a reading eggs lesson, then later watching one sub section of readingbear, and then before bed or a nap/bed you read to him and he tries a page or a few words out of a book on his level.

Not to be controversial, but another option would be bribing him to show you what he knows. I sometimes bribe my kids with a "tea party" with tea and a cookie. Then at least you would know what he knows so you can meet him at that level.

Another thing that helped with my active one was the Peter and Jane books. They teach each of the 1000 or so most common words one at a time and repeat them 14-40 times per a book.

Most importantly don't give up, when he gets it and it clicks, all of this input will pay off and he will move along that much faster.

I also like the Well Trained Mind, some other books I've read in the last year or so:

We Can Do (although this book is short, it has good information and is an inspirational story from what appears to be a very level headed young man)

Outliers (I really liked this book)

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (I liked this book, I know it was sensationalized in the media, but I found it really interesting)

Math Coach (Some good strategies to teaching math and helping explain tough concepts)

College @ 13 (I will give this an only okay rating as it was really more about girls who were accepted to an early admission program  at a college, also it was more on the nature side of nature vs nurture then I personally subscribe)

Just reading now, he finally is starting to do more independent reading and not just reading to me during our read aloud times. I feel like I haven't done as much time with with him as with my older son. So I am really happy and proud of how well he is doing.

Here is a more recent video of my 3 year trying to tackle "The Wizard of Oz". My older son had left it sitting out had left it sitting out, and we decided to let him take a shot at it.
 http://youtu.be/NzK7ScCYYek

Thanks, I am really happy with how they're doing. It's one of those things where you just have to keep working, but when they can read well on their own things certainly get much easier.

Jenny, he was just a couple of months old when we started, but we really were very low key until age 2.

Yes, that is the LeapFrog video my kids have used. Do you have the whole movie? If you play  it once a day I'm sure your daughter will learn it quickly. My son was probably about 12 months when he mastered them. http://www.amazon.com/LeapFrog-Letter-Factory-Ginny-Westcott/dp/B0000INU6S/ref=sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1376113108&sr=1-3&keywords=letter+factory. There is a newer veriosn of some of the videos that is not as good you want the 2003 version.

I have not done Jolly phonics, but I did like http://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Parents-Guide-Teaching-Reading/dp/0972860312/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376112369&sr=1-1&keywords=ordinary+parents+guide+to+teaching+reading. It is a scripted program, and very easy for a 2 year old to understand.

We did purchase the Starfall monthly subscription for a few months, but it was more of a fun extra than his main learning program. Readingeggs.com was very helpful and is usually available for a discount on www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/‎.

http://www.readingbear.org/ is also good. One benefit is that it is free. Also it teaches English at the same time it teaches reading. It shows the picture and also a video and explains the word in a sentence. We watched each section initially with the sound out slow option and then sped up to fast and then did it as the flashcards to test him. Once he knew how to blend we only did fast sounding out. Once he got them all right we gave him the star and moved on.

Our favorite sight word reading program is http://www.amazon.com/Boxset-Key-Words-William-Murray/dp/1409302830/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376112857&sr=1-1&keywords=peter+and+jane. This is a link to the first 6 books. 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2c. I personally don't think you need the c books, they are more writing type work. They go up to level 12 and build very slowly. One nice thing about them is they teach each word individually and cover over 1000 of the most common English words. They also  only use words that they have taught.

Nuria- The way that I taught the letters and letter sounds was primarily with the Leap Frog "Meet the Letters" DVD. Within 2 weeks he knew them all, it was VERY easy. We then just practiced at mealtimes with the flash cards. After your child knows the letter sounds they can move straight into Reading Bear, The Ordinary parent's guide to Teaching Reading (the second part of the book after the letter sounds) or Reading Eggs(this is probably best for children that are 2+, and a parent woudl need to do the mousing).

We did use the Starfall program, but more as a fun supplement than the main program.

I appreciate the advice for teaching a second language, I think we need ot work at speaking it more every day. I can read French pretty easily, but as I am not accustomed to speaking it, it feels ackward for me and I just don't do it very often.

Thanks again!

Sure, I will share my reading list with you. Message me your e-mail and I'll send it. For Mason we will eventually go to Saxon. For now I just wanted to get him strong in Math a little earlier than Blaise. He is also memorizing his math facts and when he is ready we will go into Saxon 5/4. Blaise still has to work harder in Math than in his other subjects. He is great in language and has a very high interest in Science, but in Math he has to work harder. I feel like it just goes to show, that with hard work anyone can be successful.

For the Peter and Jane books, I get them on amazon used. For the early  levels I goth them as a boxed set and the rest separately. I have found that he does not need the c books only a and b.

Mom2bee had requested that I post an update on where my 7 year old is currently with his progress. We started EL with him at a few months old and have been using a variety of learning methods since. I also have a 3 year old who we started EL with almost from birth. Because they are so different we've had to use different methods for each to accomplish our goals.

Blaise age 7year 2 months:
Reading: Currently he is working his way through the reading list I've developed for him. This includes Science, History, and Literature. For fun reading he is about halfway through J. R. R. Tolkien's Silmarillion. Early this Summer he read all the Harry Potter books over a few week period.

Math: He is currently working through Saxon 6/5 on his own. Each day he starts off doing 250 problems using Sterling Math Facts (an flashcard program). Next he does the timed worksheet that goes with his Saxon lesson, then he does the mental math and problem solving, reads the lesson, does the lesson practice and the 30 review problems. Afterward we correct it and he does the corrections.

Writing: We are using Institute for Excellence in Writing. This is a DVD program where they watch a lesson and then complete writing exercises. We also does Daily Language Review and a cursive writing book.

French: We do 1-2 lessons of Little Reader French Daily. We also have several You Tube playlists of French cartoons and try to watch French movies on Netflix, but unfortunately in the US there aren't many child appropriate ones. For French reading we are reading the reading a-z French books as recommended by Viv.

Piano: He is working using Soft Mozart. Currently he is learning Mozart's Away with Melancholy from the Magic Flute.

Outside interests: He is on swim team and yesterday swam 1.27 miles non-stop for a swim-a-thon. He practices that 4x/week. He also has snap circuits which he loves to build, chemistry and physics kits and loves to program using the MIT scratch software.

Mason age 3 years 9 months:
Reading: Currently working through Peter and Jane 7b. He is also reading books such as Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel.

Math: Finishing up Singapore Earlybird B (The kindergarten Math program). He has also done the Kumon writing numbers and telling time books.

Writing: Kumon "Writing Sentences" book. He is also working on explode the code, but we doing it more for the writing practice as the reading level is pretty low. We probably won't buy the next one in the series when we are done. He likes to write little letters and books and give them to people or leave them around the house.

French: For French he does his levels with his older brtoher and both read the books independently with me looking on to check pronunciation.

Piano: Also using Soft Mozart. Currently he is learning Jingle Bells (his choice, I know it's an odd one for mid-August). He also works on sight reading also each lesson and his fingering exercises.

Outside interests: He also is working on swimming, but really more focusing on learning how tow swim free style and back stroke and water safety. He loves climbing and my husband built him a climbing wall. He is also is very interested in identifying plants and berries and wants to know everything about what order things become ripe and how you know when to pick them and how you tell them apart.

nuria, here is a post where I briefly summarized what we have done so far to help in teaching reading:
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/reading-update-with-my-3-year-old/msg97183/#msg97183
Let me know if you have other questions though, I'd love to help. I'd also love to hear what you have done to help your child to become bilingual.

mom2bee, we haven't finished Ordinary Parent's Guide. We've mainly just been reading, but that's only because when we do the lessons he seems to be able to just read what is on the page. We probably will continue doing lessons a few times a week, just to reinforce things, but he doesn't seem to need it.

They are both still doing French. We took a break for a while, because the computer we had little reader on broke. However, we bought a new one for Blaise and put all of the learning stuff on it. They are doing a lesson of Little Reader french daily as well as watching French cartoons and reading books from the A to Z website. They are starting to improve but we lost quite a bit when we were forced to take that break. I know that throughout the world most people in most cultures are able to learn multiple languages, but for us this has been the most challenging part of an early education program.

I'll post an update in a separate thread on both boys.

Here is a video update of my 3 year old's reading progress. I haven't posted very much lately, just busy with life, but we've been chugging away as always. He is a very fast reader so is working on not skipping words when reading aloud.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/zfhJ1xQv5pU&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/zfhJ1xQv5pU&rel=1</a>

It's interesting, we did more of a sight word approach with him (with some phonics as well of course) and more of a phonics approach with his older brother. However, both seem to be on track to have equal reading skills. I wonder if it doesn't matter what you do as long as you are consistent or if it's just that they have their own strengths and learning styles.

http://library.brillkids.com/download.php?cid=1&tid=&lid=&fid=3048

I did this one once, it has 10 facts for each planet including pluto. You could always incorporate it if you'd like it might at least save you from needing to research/record/find pictures for that part of it.