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All,

I have a 3 year old son. He is great, loves to talk about his day,
"read" books, do puzzles, run around etc. We have found that his first
response to any question is "I don't know." Even though he very well
does know.

Why are you asking him questions about something that you "know he knows"?
He knows it, isn't that good enough? Are you asking him questions like "Are
you eating those cookies?" when you catch him with his hand in the jar and
crumbs on his face?

We have tried to joke him out of this habit by saying
something totally ridiculous as the answer and he always corrects us
with the correct information right away. Last night I was doing a story
walk with him. (having him telling us the story by looking at the
pictures and memory from when we read it to him). Every prompting
question I asked him was answered with "I don't know". Then we
threatened to stop the story time and get on to bedtime.

:-(((((
That is going to take all the joy and fun away from reading. Just read the
story, and if he offers a comment, fine, if not, fine! It's supposed to be
fun and relaxing, not a quiz show every time. He might just want to look at
the pictures, listen to you, and absorb the story.
He is only three, he's a long way off from having to do book reports! I
googled "story walk" (never having heard that term), and that seems to be a
technique more suited to school-age children , in fact I witnessed our
principal doing this with first graders on RIF day. I didn't know what it
was called, I thought she was just being "teacherly".

After that he
was literally catching himself when the phrase was halfway out of his
mouth. It wasn't until that moment that I thought of this as a habit
rather then something else. (I don't know what exactly, but annoying
comes to mind)

Any good ideas on how I can get him to be self aware enough that we can
stop this habit?

Relax! Stop asking him so many questions. Read for fun. Let him talk first,
and respond to what he says . If he's gabbing about something and you get
excited and say "Oh! and then what?!?" , I bet he'll answer appropriately.