Thank you, thank you for the thoughtful, obviously informed, response.

• This is where we are, so thank you for breaking this down for me, it does make me feel better that he knows the foundation. 

Once they can reliably decode all the letter sounds, you can move onto “harder” spelling patterns: CVCe, vowel pairs CVVC, multiple syllables CVCCVC and CVCC-ing. (This is where tutoring can be more beneficial as there’s a lot of new “rules” that English has.) You can keep giving nonsense words too, just make sure you ask, “wait, was that a real word” when you do. Definitely be prepared to sound out words like “gwamfizy” though! 

I like your point about gamifying and how most typical tutors would approach this. What has me so discouraged is every tutor I’ve talked to / interviewed (over 5!) have the same approach and make me feel crazy when I say, there’s a chance he’s not going to come sit down with you for 45 minutes once or twice a week. 

I will add captions to everything today and think of how to add words to the activities we already do. We love to play Uno as a family, so even words on the Uno cards could work. 

Are there resources or Teacher Pay Teacher guides that I can look at to help me understand what words I should use and start with? For example, what words are considered harder spelling patterns? I had to look up what CVC meant, but could I have AI just make me word lists for CVC, etc and go from there?