Dr Madeleine Portwood, a senior educational psychologist at Durham County Council, said that up to 30 per cent of the hundreds of children she had observed started school without knowing whether they were left- or right- handed, up from 10 per cent a decade ago.
She said, 'It is important, if you start formal education at four-and-a-half and you are expected to hold an implement to write, that you know which hand to hold it in.'
Children often seemed unsure about what hand to use when holding a pen and so they gave up trying, she said, and teachers tended to place a pen in a child's right hand, creating confusion for left-handed children.
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