Teaching my kiddo phonics and how to read

...is WAY more fun than I anticipated.  I must admit that teaching him to read was a very daunting task when I first realized that if I chose to home school him for Pre-K and Kindergarten the task would fall to me.  Reading, after all, is a basis for learning anything and everything!  I knew I wanted him to be a great reader and not just a decent reader.  I wanted to instill in his curious little brain an understanding of WHY words worked and not just and understanding of what words looked like.  I knew I wanted him to learn to read phonetically and not by sight words.  I totally believed that someone else should be teaching him this important thing.  I agonized over my selection of curriculum, but finally landed on Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons when a close friend suggested it.  I hated the weight of this major milestone sitting on my shoulders.  I dreaded the day by day lessons and felt utterly under qualified to even be attempting this task.  The "helps" the book offered didn't seem clear or helpful and I was constantly second guessing my ability to teach him to read {let me insert here that I needed a major attitude check during this time and the Lord was working on me and my lack of trusting Him to give me the understanding and the ability to do this task}.  Then we got to lesson 6 and he read his first word - me.  I was hooked.  My baby, my four year old had actually phonetically sounded out and read his first word!  He turned five in October and his desire to learn to read deepened during a break that we necessarily took from our reading lessons.  He has been locating words in library books and can successfully read Bob Books that are focused on the sounds he has learned. - currently those sounds include m, long e, s, short i, th, t, d, and short a.  He is reading short sentences and today we will finish up lesson 16.  I hope to get through 2 lessons a week from now through Christmas.  His enthusiasm and excitement to learn to read keeps me going and I am very thankful that the Lord brought me to a breaking point and made me face my fears and repent of my lack of trust in His abilities!  I can teach my child to read because "I can do all things through Jesus Christ who gives me strength." (Phil 4:13)