It sounds like this is a one-on-one tutoring situation, am I right? Suggestions would be different depending on many factors, and I can only assume some of them right now.
Make some flash cards of the ones he needs to practice. Make it a race between him and you. You get a point if he misses a word, and he gets a point if he correctly says the word. Let him make a mark on the back of the card each time he's correct, and if he's correct 3 times, it can be taken out of the stack because he knows it. For the scorekeeping, I made a form on paper that was a pyramid shape made of boxes. He could color in one box for each word he said correctly. You can use game markers along a homemade game board, or use the white board to keep track, whatever would seem to motivate your child.
Turn it into a game of concentration or Go Fish, using the flash cards, and decide ahead of time what makes a pair, whether it is the beginning sound or a rhyming pair.
If you are using word families (-in, -at, -ug) you can have him gather as many as he can, and make a silly poem from the words, limit of using one per line. (That way you don't hear, "The fat cat sat on the mat.") You can have him sort the words (and say them), only using 2 or 3 categories at a time. Easier is having them in families, like sorting -at with -it. When he has mastered these, have him sort by vowel sound. Words like pat, pan, lab would go together and words like sit, tin, with would go together. When he has mastered short vowels, start on the long vowels.
If you are using sight words, I think the flash card drill is the best I can come up with. Good luck!
