Reading Troubles

My 6 year old son has been slowly working on learning to read.  He knew his letter sounds early and learned the names.  We didn’t start reading lessons a la Ruth Beechick and CMish style till he was 5.  We worked for maybe 5-10 minutes as his attention span is very short, and he is quit easily distracted.  Since January, we made it through 3 letter words and the first set of BOB books.  From the beginning, I could tell he was memorizing words. He also skipped or had great difficulty learning to recognize short words – to, the, is, in, on.  He is pretty secure in short vowels, but has to sound out almost every word and really fusses.

My husband and I have been trying to discern if the fussing is truly because it is hard or because he doesn’t want to.  We are working on his helping even when he doesn’t want to, but I think this goes deeper.  Although I have only diagnosed it through reading and looking at my husband, he has inherited my husbands ADD and my trouble learning to read.  I didn’t get and don’t get phonics.  I read “Right-Brained Child in a Left-Brained World” about ADD, visual learners.  That is my son, and the author describes something to learn to read much like CM did.  So, I tried CM style lessons yesterday using the poem “Little Kitty”. 

Here is what happened: He learned like and kitty and sort of little.  When asked to sort those words into pile, he put like and little in the same pile. When I helped him sort those, he put some of the like’s in the kitty pile (I think because they have a k.) and some in the little pile (because of the l). I gently asked him to compare the words again. At times he corrected it; at others, not. 

What do I do?  I want him to enjoy reading, and right now, he hates it.  He loves to be read to and listens to audio books extensively.  Do I take a break? Seek help? Keep going?

Thanks!