Begin by making sure the student knows how to correctly form the letters of the alphabet, as well as their proper sequence in alphabetical order.  Until the student has managed to memorize the sequence of the letters, give them a permanent “model,” a paper on which are:  the letters printed in alphabetical order, (2) below the printed letters, a “running alphabet” of all the lower-case letters in alphabetical order, joined together in cursive; and (3) at the bottom, the capital letters in alphabetical order, in cursive style but separated.  This model may be attached somewhere inside the student’s notebook, so that the student will always have it for ready reference.

In time, the student should daily be required to print or write (depending on how advanced the student is in their learning process) the complete alphabet, both lower-case and capitals, from memory.  This will be very important and helpful to the student later, in dictionary work and all other work that requires a knowledge of the sequence of the alphabet, such as using a telephone directory.

Once the student no longer has any trouble in forming individual letters, the student should begin to have Penmanship assignments.  At first, these lessons are done under supervision by the tutor.  Later, they can be given daily as part of a homework assignment.

A Penmanship assignment consists of the student’s copying from a book a certain amount of the text into the students own printing or cursive writing (as the tutor chooses).  The student writes as much as will fill one page of notebook paper, skipping every other line as the student writes.  This means, of course, that the student is only writing a half-page of material.  But this is a heavy enough assignment, especially for a student who is badly disabled by dyslexia.  As time goes on, however, the student becomes more adept at it.  Finally, the tutor can stop giving Penmanship assignments.

While the student is doing Penmanship assignments, it is very important that these be read and corrected daily by the tutor, and the student should be shown the mistakes (in a non-judgmental way).  Often a student does not know how to proceed from the formation of one letter to another.  For example, when writing the running alphabet, the student may successfully write the sequence “bcde” with no trouble.  But when the student copies text that requires him to write the word “bright,” the student may feel unsure about how to successfully go from a “b” to an “r.”  However, if the student does enough Penmanship lessons, from many different texts, soon the student will have encountered all the possible combinations of letters that are likely to occur in the English language.

Regarding capital letters, in cursive writing some capitals are joined to the small letters following them (“A,” for example) and some are not (such as “D”).  The tutor should note any mistakes in “the joining” and help the student learn to correct them.

If the tutor has any idiosyncrasies in their own handwriting, the tutor needs to give those up when helping dyslexic students acquire good handwriting.  On the tutor’s own time, of course, they may write as the tutor chooses.  If necessary, the tutor should give themself Penmanship assignments on the standard formation of letters.