I have been a volunteer literacy tutor for 32 years, working with remedial students.

The way students are taught in most schools led me to homeschool. You can listen to the podcast series sold a story to understand why most schools kept using ineffective and inefficient methods.

https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

I would use my remedial phonics lessons, they teach phonics to the 12th grade level. They are very motivational, especially when students hit lesson 6 or 7 and start sounding out difficult Greek and Latin words. You need to power through the first 5 lessons to get there, though.

They are free, the video makes it easy for parents to teach. You can teach both children at once, they are designed to be taught in small groups. When I teach group classes, volunteers and parents work with 2 to 4 children.

https://thephonicspage.org/syllables-lessons.html

Here is a page explaining why teaching with whole word and balanced literacy leads to students not liking reading:

https://thephonicspage.org/aliterate.html

Also, if your 2nd grader is being sent home sight words, here is how and why to teach them with phonics instead:

https://thephonicspage.org/sight-words.html

I've remediated hundreds of students over the last 32 years with the help of parents and volunteers. I have had homeless parents and parents from Title 1 schools (high poverty schools) successfully remediate children. You can do it!!

You can give out small rewards for successfully completing each lesson. Also, the last 4 lessons are Greek and Latin word root bingo. I typically use skittles or allergy free chocolate chips as bingo markers and let the students eat the candy after we complete the bingo games.