My son just turned one and I need some suggestions on how to start teaching him to read.  I feel I am not giving him enough tools to learn what he is capable of learning at this stage.  What steps, materials, websites, etc... do you normally use to start teaching a little baby to read?  Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

The first thing I would do, if I were in your position is start reading to him as often as you can.  That builds the foundation for teaching him to read.  If you feel there is only one thing you can do to help your son then it would be to read to him often.  Once you get that routine going I would introduce flash cards to him, perhaps words that he is familiar with from the books you are reading.  I would say that those are the two most important things you can do at his point.  Of course you can use videos as an aid to expose him to language and get him familiar with the printed word, but the first two steps mentioned above are the most crucial.

I wish I had started to read to my children earlier that I did.  I have 6 children and I would begin reading to them, not consistently however, before they were a year old. All of my kids love to read, so we have been successful in raising readers, but the benefits of beginning to read to babies are unmatched with any other activity.  I am currently reading The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease, what a wonderful book.  It really drives home how important reading to our kids is.  He stresses that we need to read to our children always, even as teens.  He says that one way we can determine if we need to read to our kids is to ask ourselves if we think they (our children) read too much (on their own).  Most don't.

I was thinking of that last  night as I said good night to my children.  As I went from room to room my 2 oldest girls were reading books in bed, one was sewing in her bed, another was reading, my youngest had just read me several pages of Winnie the Pooh while I was in the kitchen taking care of things and my son was in his bed reading The Throne of Fire.  

I would like to spend more time reading to my older children, but there is no lack of reading in our home, thank GOD!  My 7 year old son, whom I taught to read as a baby, just finished reading The Red Pyramid yesterday.  It is over 400 pages.  My advice is, raise a reader and they will always read, but you have to start by reading to them.

Perhaps I did not answer your questions.  I would read How to Teach Your Baby to Read by Glenn Doman if you have not already.  I would start with flash cards or a reading kit that can give you all the materials you need unless you have time to prepare some yourself.  Visit www.intellbaby.com and educate yourself a bit.  You may want to visit the BrillKids Forum to find answers to many of your questions.