Forcing children to learn handwriting at too young an age might be harmful, MPs investigating early years education have been warned.

And teaching children to read early does not necessarily mean they will be better readers later on, advisers say.

Children who do best at learning to read and write are those who first have good language skills.

The advice is in a briefing prepared for the Commons education select committee by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.

The office has reviewed the available research on how children develop.

"Both reading and writing are established most readily on a foundation of good spoken language," its report says.

Books at home

"However the ability to identify letters by age five does not necessarily cause better reading at age 11, and teaching children to read early does not necessarily mean that they will be better readers later.

"Studies have found that children with good reading skills generally have access to books at home and parents who encourage their children to read but do not pressurise them or use systematic formal approaches that are commonly used in schools."

It points out that children also have to be able to control their finger movements to be able to write, but they do not usually have fine co-ordination until they are at least five - and boys are slower than girls.

"Forcing handwriting skills upon children before they have the basic co-ordinative powers might be harmful," it says.

"Few children will have established the skills involved in writing before the age of five, no matter how good their conversational language or how exposed they are to books and other forms of writing."

More generally, the report says there appears to be no advantage to starting formal schooling relatively early - at the age of four or five, as in the UK - as opposed to later, aged six or seven, as in other European countries.