Early years consultant Margaret Edgington said it was 'outrageous, morally wrong and developmentally inappropriate to force-feed very young children so they can pass an entrance test to some private school'.
She blamed the tuition companies, which she accused of making commercial gain out of parents' confusion.
'When parents with very young children seek tuition, these companies should tell them it is not right,' she said. 'We won't produce intelligent, well-rounded human beings by force-feeding them at such a young age.' Parents pay tuition fees ranging from 11 to 25 an hour depending on a child's age.
Clive West, a partner at the Lincolnshire-based company Stepping Stones Tuition, confirmed that his company had helped a two-and-a-half year old who needed to point to his name on the blackboard as a condition of entry into a private nursery, probably attached to an independent school. But he said, 'We do not force anybody to learn, that's practically and morally wrong.'
Mr West, whose wife is a Montessori-trained teacher, said that while tutoring was normally for those aged four and above, he was often approached to teach very young children a foreign language. Many parents believed that this was the best time to start. In one instance he had been approached by the parents of an 18-month-old child who wanted her to learn a foreign language, but he had declined.
Many approaches to Stepping Stones Tuition, whose business has been growing by 50 per cent a year, come from parents worried about SATs at seven and 11. Mr West said, 'The first thing we tell them is not to panic. But if we can help with problems at an early stage in lessons lasting just one hour a week then that can be beneficial.'
Bill Fleming, director of Top Tutors agency in London, said he often fielded requests from parents of two-year-olds anxious about the baseline assessment. But he only supplies a tutor when a child is three. The class involves 'very basic alphabet work and use of numbers'.
He put the demand for tuition down to competition for places at certain high-achieving schools and a shortage of teachers.
Margaret Edgington said she felt sorry for worried parents 'who want the best for their child'. But she insisted that research had shown how cramming knowledge in such young minds was not the best way. 'Very young children should be playing and talking with caring adults, not being force-fed education.'