teaching your toddler to read

I have been thinking a lot lately when the right time is for parents to start teaching their kids how to read. I've seen kids who are 8 or 10 and they could not read smoothly... I also have seen as young as 3 (congratulations to their parents).

I think that my son does not have the attention span needed for some kind of a structured "teaching how to read" setup. He can spell his name though. He can identify words like zoo, spell, dog, wolf, tall, ball, wall, book, sheep, duck, and some other words that he normally sees when watching TV. He also knows the alphabet so well... and the sound of every letter. But every time I try to teach him how to combine the sounds of letters to form a word, he just listens and then after a few minutes he's all over the place doing whatever he wants to do.

I read an article "When and how can I teach my toddler to read?" and it said "Children usually don't start reading before the age of 5 or 6, and for good reason. Researchers believe that until that age, most children have not yet formed certain neural connections that allow them to decode printed letters and then mentally combine them to make words. A few children are able to read earlier, but most of them just pick it up; they don't learn through direct instruction."

It is good to know that I'm on the right track because a lot of articles that I read about this topic tell me that the key to preparing my child is through indirect instruction. This includes introducing him to letters, books, letter sounds, words with pictures, etc.

Perhaps I should try searching for other materials like videos and flash cards. These sorts of things catch his interest. I think it's time I get a new set because he already memorized those that are on his desk. One more question popped on my mind though, how often do I need to "upgrade" the materials?