I'm sure it goes without saying, but the first step is obviously letter recognition and letter sounds. Reading isn't going anywhere without having those skills mastered. We are now 2 for 2 kids on letting The Letter Factory DVD teach our kids their letters and sounds -- we start this between age 2.5 and 3, and after about 2 weeks they've got it down. Read my post here for more details on this. The DVD teaches uppercase letters; you'll have to nail down lowercase letters too (we like flashcards).
As far as learning to read, we started with phonics-based early readers (think "a cat is fat"). We used a set that my mom had saved from teaching us to read in the 80's, but the current equivalent are the BOB books. Our main tip for success with these books is that the parents/adults NEVER read these books. They are so simple that a child can easily memorize the words after hearing it read to them only once -- so if they want to read the book, they have to do it themselves. Start with the easiest book and work your way up; on every single word, I'd repeat "sound it out" until he made each phonetic sound and eventually figured out the word. This is VERY SLOW at first. If it's too frustrating, or they aren't showing enough interest, you can set it aside and wait a few weeks or even months...don't give in and read the book to them! They have to be both able and willing to do it themselves. (Of course, we continue reading lots of OTHER books throughout all of this -- even after he can read on his own.)
With C, after he got the hang of it, he was eager to read more. The set we used had 40 of these books that worked up from easier words to slightly more complex words (long vowel sounds, etc.) The BOB books have a similar difficulty scale - start with the beginner, then level 2, etc. Personally, I find that phonics-based books are an easier starting point than sight words, but I'm sure this is heavily influenced by it being the same way I learned to read myself.
After phonics books became easy, we moved onto leveled readers. These are great because there are so many books featuring different popular characters from TV shows or movies (Paw Patrol, Star Wars, Barbie, Daniel Tiger, etc.). There are several different brands of leveled readers, and we used all of them - primarily Step into Reading, I Can Read!, Ready to Read, and World of Reading. I've included a photo below comparing the way each of these 4 brands defines the various levels; for example, Step Into Reading is levels 1-5, while the others all have a level lower than Level 1 (My First, Pre-1, Pre-Level One)...so not all Level 1 books mean the same thing.
We used these interchangeably based on whichever brand featured the characters/topics that would most interest my son. Berenstain Bears, Daniel Tiger, and Avengers were some of his first that peaked his interest. Some come in box sets and some are sold individually. There is also usually a huge section of these at the public library! We have the same rules on these books - the parents/adults don't read them.
After progressing through the various levels of readers, he was ready for easy/short chapter books. (The Level 3-4 readers generally have paragraphs, so they are a good transition.) C is not yet at an age where he is interested in reading books without ANY pictures; most early chapter books still have a picture every few pages. He started with mystery books, because there is an incentive to get to the end of the book to find out the answer to the mystery.
Some of our favorites include:
- the Nate the Great mystery series
- the Cam Jansen mystery series
- the Jigsaw Jones mystery series
- the Magic Tree House series (these are his favorite)
- the Flat Stanley series
- the Eerie Elementary series
I think all of the above would be great for either girls or boys; I've also heard the Junie B Jones series is super popular with girls (C has only read one so far). Most of these books are rated with a Reading Level of 2 - 2.4 or for ages 7-10. The great thing about these book series is that once they find a character they like, there are many more books in the series that will likely appeal to them too! We plan to try The Boxcar Children series next. Check your local library! I currently have 75 books for C on request from these various series (we don't worry about reading them in order).
I am hoping by Christmas he will be ready for the Harry Potter illustrated series! (Again, I think the inclusion of illustrations will help him visualize the story and keep his interest for such a long book).