How Do I Help Almost Six Year Old Son Repeating Kindergarten with His Phonics

I would get the recommendations and info from the former teacher and speech/OT people (I know they're on vacation, but you must have something in writing about your son's learning issues, social weaknesses, reading difficulties...everything). Then I would talk to the special ed people in the new school and work out a plan.

If you aren't sure what a successful teaching strategy would be for your son and/or if you don't have teaching experience, I wouldn't suggest that you implement a new regimen at all, lest it confuse him. Adding stress is the worst way to start out next year.

Instead, visit the library and check out some books, and just read to him - with joy and relaxation, not with any effort to get him to pronounce words. Get books on a topic that interests him, rather than an instructional guide to the ABCs. Visit the zoo or the children's museum, and get him to "help" you read the signs at the exhibits that intrigue him. Wait for him to ask you a question, and then say, "I don't know. Let's read this description to find out."
Play board games that have a limited amount of reading, and occasionally say, "I can't see what it says on this card. Can you help me?" But ONLY OCCASIONALLY.

From my experience in 2 schools, most of the kids who repeated kindergarten just blossomed and made great strides the following year.

And by the way, my son was 6 when he started kindergarten, so your child won't be the oldest or sticking out like a sore thumb.

These are my suggestions. BUT if your son seems unhappy or bored I would not push it. Keep it fun. He may hate reading if it is pushed on him! ----
Read to him every day. A LOT. Follow the words along with your fingertip.
Read to him multiple times a day (morning, afternoon, bedtime).
Pick books he is interested in not the ones you like. My son loved silly books at this age that I thought were junk but his teacher said to not discourage ANY reading.
Point out words and signs and letters to him when you are around town.
Take him to a comic book shop to pick out a comic now and then. Our kids just love doing this.
Pair a physical activity with a letter (or with spelling something or with saying the alphabet)....such as jumping jacks while spelling his name out loud. This causes him to use a different part of his brain. Do this daily.
Turn spelling into something physical - have him write something (his name for example) in sand each day.
Get a small write on wipe off board and have him practice easy words on it.
Get a poster of the alphabet and have him place plastic letters on it to spell something. Or have him find certain letters.
Read read read!
Go to the library once a week and read him some books there as well as pick out a stack to take home.
My kids LOVED learning to read using old Calvin and Hobbes books or other silly comic books...it made them really want to read. The library has a section of books like this.
My brother had a learning disability and was dyslexic when he was a kid. If your son has a specific known disability in how he learns to read I would also hire a tutor who has experience with this sort of thing because some kids need to be taught with different methods.
I think I read about 10 or more books a day to each of my kids when they were young...just bc we like reading. But I think it helped.

My son turned 6 just before kindergarten began, and I just wanted to say that it was so good for him to be one of the oldest in his class. There were actually several kids in his grade that turned 6 over the summer, and it has really been good for them.

I think it's important to relax. Our school doesn't do much homework at all, but they really encourage us to read together. They asked us to do 20 minutes a day. In kindergarten and first grade they encouraged us to read to our kids and to let them read to us whenever they could. Just reading to him every day is really going to help. When he shows an interest or wants to read to you, great. But just listening and watching you really does make a difference.

I would encourage you not to worry about it and not to try to do too much extra with him. This is a new school and a new beginning. Let him explore the new school and learn with his class. His teacher will be treating him as a new kindergartner, so the expectations will be the same as a kid seeing it all for the first time. Just be excited with him when he tells you about what he's doing.

The more you can relax and have fun with him, the better. He will be excited and hopefully not feel pressure or stress. That will help him have fun and learn.

Some kids are reading going into kindergarten - but most are not.

That does NOT MEAN that he's behind!

Kindergarten - and first grade - and second grade - are all there to teach reading.
Our son's reading really took off 2nd half of 2nd grade (so did mine for that matter) and ever since then he was always reading way above his grade level.
Please don't sweat this.
The important thing is to read to/with your child and make it fun and enjoyable.

Do not just plunk him down with a book and demand he read it for some arbitrary time period - I can't think of a way to make it a more miserable experience but so many parents do this and then wonder why their kids hate to read.

Show him how much you enjoy reading - and read with him any time of the day.
It's not just for bedtime!
While he and you are enjoying books - he's absorbing all this info until it gels in his brain.
And suddenly it will click and he'll be reading more and more himself (and reading to you).

Kids are supposed to be 5 years old when they start kindergarten so they can be 17 when they start their senior year, so your child is actually kindergarten age right now. Just saying that most states won't let a 4 year old kiddo start kindergarten unless their birthday is just days from when school started.

Some kids don't read in kindergarten. They might not even start reading until they're almost in 1st or even 2nd grade. The expectation that kids should be reading in kindergarten makes unrealistic expectations.

You can find online games for him to play that help with phonics, there are workbooks and such too.

BUT your child's #1 job is to be a kid and have a lot of playtime. Kids learn a lot of skills by playing. Google it. Kids learn pre-reading skills, pre-math skills, and so much more.

If he's in school all day then he shouldn't be coming home after school and doing homework for even 30 minutes.

So he must have been the youngest in his class I'm taking it last year. Here, I think parents have the option of holding their kids back a year if they feel it would be better - so he'll just likely be around the same development pace now as a lot of the kids in his class. Sometimes kids are not quite there yet.
If he's getting help already from therapists, I think they should be able to help you with learning ideas and how you can help. Be sure to ask them (you probably have - but I used to ask ours what I could do at home, and sometimes made my own appointment with them to discuss this). We had both speech therapy and occupational therapy with some of our kids.
They would know if he's struggling and what techniques would best help him.
For me - reading was just a gradual thing - it's not like it came all at once. I had realistic expectations because I used to work with kids when I was much younger, and because I have nieces and nephews. It's quite common for kids to learn at different paces, so don't be too concerned. Unless he has a learning challenge (I'm sure the therapists would have noticed this by now) then just continue with making learning letters and sounds fun. Read together - I went back to those toddler board books where they show the letter A and words that begin with A, etc. I was glad I had kept those. We just did one a night at bedtime kind of thing.
We did the odd PBS games online - the kids enjoyed those. They are based on learning.
I suspect where he was the youngest in his class (depending on your class cut off for kindergarten) he'll do much better this year.

In my state, in all but a handful of communities, we have an age 5 by 9/1 cut-off so your son would not have been in Kindergarten last year and would be just starting this year. So from my perspective, your son is at the same developmental stages as most kids I know entering Kindergarten and I would approach the year with those expectations, that last year was simply too early and this year will be a "just right" fit and he'll be ready. Of course read to him every day, but beyond that, I wouldn't do too much by way of structured additional work at home. Last year was probably already stressful, and this year will be better simply because he'll be more ready. So I wouldn't plan on anything formal in terms of things to do at home, not at first anyway. Let him start the year, read, read, read at home, and if he continues to struggle, then work with the teachers to see what you can do at home to augment as needed.

Read to him. For fun! More and more research is showing that the more kids hear books, the better their reading. Unless the school is sending something home for him to work on just spend time reading. Play with rhyming words. Learning to read is very developmental and maturity plays a big part. As a reading specialist, I've seen lots of kinder kids struggle with reading only to flourish as readers in 1st grade.

Besides reading to your child daily, get the book "How to Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". (Order it on Amazon) I used the book with my then 4 yo. During kindergarten she was reading at a 4th grade level. By fifth grade she tested out at 12th grade 8 months. I must say my girlls loved to read so I think they were so advanced because of amount of practice they had. It was not uncommon for them to read 3 hours per day during the week and much more during the weekend.

(FYI...your son would just be going into kindergarten in my school district. He would have missed the 9/1 cutoff date and would not have accepted him, at least in public school.)

Have you heard of the program "hooked on phonics"? They have a complete three box set you can buy with a series devoted to kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. This is something that will be pretty easy for him to do with minimal instruction on your part. When my daughter had completed her year of kindergarten, she did the entire kindergarten and first grade sets over the summer even though starting from the beginning was a bit of a backtrack for her. By the start of school for first grade she was reading at about a fourth grade level.

I agree that it seems like maybe he started K a little early and wasn't developmentally ready for all that reading stuff. I think that just his background in what he learned last year combined with his age will be a HUGE platform for him this year. I imagine he will pick up on it quickly and will excel in it early on.

As far as what to do to help him, quite simply all you need to do is read to him. That's it. Seriously. Read as much as you can. Read picture books, even read easy chapter books if he has the attention span (and he might not and that's okay too). Go to the library and the book store and look at books and pictures and talk to him about books and his day.