How are your child's hearing, auditory processing, and phonemic awareness? If any of these are weak, they can hinder reading and spelling, because English uses a phonetic code where combinations of visual symbols are linked to specific sounds.
Using a multi-sensory approach that links vision, movement, and sound and that takes advantage of word patterns can be useful for many struggling readers. Orton - Gillingham and related methods are often used to teach dyslexics to read, and they would most likely work for anyone who was not spontaneously picking up the code.
