Distinguish vowel sounds. Often students learn their vowels but have trouble distinguishing between sounds and don't always learn to correspond a sound with its letter. Play games that require them to distinguish between short vowel sounds. An example of this is hearing the difference between a short "e" and short "i" sound. Also, play games that distinguish between short and long vowel sounds. For instance, say a word, then show it to the student. Ask them to tell you if the vowel in the word is long or short. An example of this is saying the word, "hop," showing the word to the student, then asking her to tell you if the vowel sound is a short or long "o."
Practice sounding out words. Give students pictures and words. Ask students to read the words aloud to make sure they're reading vowel and consonant sounds correctly. Afterward, ask them to choose the word that matches the picture. For example, show students a picture of a fox. Then give them the word choices "fox," "fly" and "feet." Kids Front (kidsfront.com) has a game featuring every letter of the alphabet.
Complete word family activities. Words that are in the same word family have the same vowel and consonant endings. For example, "pan," "can," "man" and "tan" are all in the same word family. This activity can be done using pencil and paper, a dry erase board or magnetic letters.
Practice reading words with specific blends. Once students can sound out words, move them toward reading words with blends such as "bl," "gr," and "sm." Carl's Corner (carlscorner.us.com) has word blend lists and activities, such as making a book for a specific blend, making a blend word wheel or other instructional craft activities.