Children who struggle to speak at the age of two are less likely to do well when they start primary school, research suggests.

It also found that children who own more books and are taken to the library as toddlers are more likely to achieve higher scores when they start school.

The study, by researchers at the University of the West of England, Bristol University, Sheffield University and Edinburgh University, looked at how the environment in which children learn to communic-ate affects how ready they are for school.

The findings show that children’s understanding and use of words, and their ability to say two- or three-word sentences by the age of two, was strongly associated with their performance when they started school.

“Language development at the age of two years predicts children’s performance on entry to primary school,” the study says.

It also found that the activities and interaction a mother had with her child in the first two years of the youngster’s life was an important factor in how it performed at the age of five.

“Influential factors in the child’s communication environment in-cluded the early ownership of books, trips to the library, attend-ance at pre-school, parents teaching a range of activities and the number of toys and books available. “So, for example, those children who owned more books and were taken to the library more frequently at age two achieved higher scores on the school assessment when entering primary school.” But the more time a child spent watching television, the more its scores when it started school dropped, it adds.

Sue Roulstone, professor at the University of the West of England, said: “These findings are an encouragement to all parents to provide a positive communic-ation environment for their child-ren from the very start of their lives.”