Letter sounds. First steps toward reading!

First thanks goes to my mother for all the language learning stuff that has helped Anson learn his letters and sounds. His letter puzzle, the 3-part cards, the magnet letters and cards, books, etc. have really helped this process roll forward. Thanks also to Janet for sending books!
Today Anson was playing with the 3-part matching cards. He was working through the rodent set when I started having him sound out the words below the pictures. For the FIRST TIME he said the letter sounds WITHOUT naming the letters first. Previously, when I would pointed to a letter A he would have to say to himself "A says aaaa." Today when I pointed to the letter A he just said "aaaa." This is a very small difference, but it meant that he could start sounding out small words. We went through a whole alphabet book twice while practicing ONLY saying letter sounds. He did it! Then we moved to lowercase letters and he has most of those down too. He has a hard time mixing up lowercase e with uppercase G. They do look a lot alike. And lowercase s and z (even though he rarely mixes up the uppercase S and Z?). And of course b and d.
Then later today we got a package in the mail from Janet that included an easy reader book for Anson. He sounded through quite a bit of that.
I am so proud of our little boy. He LOVES his letters. His favorite song is the A says "a", the B says "b" song from Leap Frog's Letter Factory. When I start getting sick of that or the ABC song, I have to remember that it is a good thing he likes his letters. He likes the library and he likes his books. His favorite activity is "reading" to himself (though going outside in the sun and playing with the neighborhood kids trumps all...of course).
I think he gets this from his Dad, who loves language learning. I have never seen him geek out about anything as much as that. And despite being a relatively slow reader he can read loads and loads for school.
Anyways, enough bragging, I am just so happy!