Writing (Printing) is part of reading. Not only are these skills linked in the brain, but one enhances the other. Similar to the phonological loop of speaking, hand-printing strengthens the reading circuits.
One study indicates that hand-printing words actually helps break mirror-invariance* in the brain, allowing students to distinguish between mirror opposites like “b" and “d.” (See the Eye Movement page for more info.)
This is why part of the Bigram Rap activities is printing the bigrams, or even the whole rhyming sentence. Here are some connective activities to help with this.
Letter Matrix Sample: (more below after warm-ups)
Hand-printing involves visual/spatial organization combined with fine motor skills. (along with other connections in the literacy circuits) The image above shows one way to develop these brain functions, but I suggest starting with just the dot-matrix warm-ups below.
I got this idea from the Hoffman Institute** where they used dot matrices (like the ones below) to improve general learning skills. I figured these would be a good warm-up for the letter matrices. They progress from easy to more complex. The half-page format allows for making booklets. I’ve included blank grids so that you can make your own:
Letter Matrices and Blank Template: The following start with more geometric letters that match the geometric nature of the matrix. Then they progress to more organic letters like the ones above that often get confused with each other. You can use the blank matrix to create pages for whatever letters you’re studying. These are in half-page format so that they can be folded into a booklet. Just run a very thin bead of glue down the center-fold of each page.
* “How Does Literacy Break Mirror-Invariance in the Visual System?”, Pegado et al, 2014
** Glynda Lee Hoffman TED Talk- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xgzhlm4i3g