Teaching four-year-olds to write is about as useful as teaching a dog to walk on its hind legs, a literacy expert said yesterday as figures showed that one in seven preschool children struggle to write their own name.

The annual assessments of children’s progress during their first year in school found that more than one fifth had problems stringing a coherent written sentence together when they entered their reception year.

Nearly a quarter failed to reach the expected levels of emotional development for their age.

The findings follow concerns that some of the Government’s early years goals are unrealistic and risk setting back their development.

Sue Palmer, an independent literacy consultant and author of the book Toxic Childhood, said that many under-5s were simply too young to achieve the literacy goals set out for them.

“You can train children to do things that do not come naturally to them, such as writing, just as you can train a dog to walk on its hind legs,” she said.

“Because the target is there, a lot of children have been made to get to it. The great question, however, is whether it is in their long-term interests. I think it will do more damage than good. It will put them off because it is just too difficult.”

The figures coincide this month with the statutory implementation of the new Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework in England.

Under the EYFS, every nursery, childminder and reception class in England has to monitor children’s progress towards 69 government-set “early learning goals”.

Two of the most contentious targets require children to “write their own names . . . and begin to form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation” and “use phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words”.

The statistics, published yesterday by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, showed that 61 per cent of five-year-olds reached a “good” level of development in writing, which includes producing simple lists, stories and writing their own name. This figure is up 3 per cent on last year.

Among five-year-olds in the most deprived 30 per cent of areas in the country, 38 per cent achieved a good level development.

In more affluent areas this figures was 54 per cent, a gap of 16 percentage points. It means a target to reduce inequalities in development between children in different areas to 12 per cent by this year has not been met.

The Government said it was investing £4 billion in early years over the next three years.

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