Tutoring a child in the area of literacy?

I had good results by finding Word Frequency Lists online... these lists will have the 1,000 most common words in the English language. And that's a great place to start. As for reading, I interviewed the child to find out what interested him. Then I went to the library and found plenty of books (yes, many with pictures) for us to read TOGETHER. I would read the first page, for example, and he would then read the second page. I would always help with any word he didn't know... I would just give it to him... I did not work on word attack skills at this time (it takes away from my goal of comprehension). After reading, I'd ask questions over what we read together... we'd go back and look if unsure. By the way, since you mentioned this was a boy, I strongly recommend you begin by focusing on NONFICTION. Educational research shows that boys prefer nonfiction to fiction.