The ABCs are apparently no longer as easy as 1-2-3.  Recent federal studies indicate that the average American teenager's vocabulary is less than half that of the average teenager in the 1950s.

"A lot of the reasons are that we have a lot of social media now--the internet, texting, MySpace, all those sites that kids go to, and there's not a lot of face-to-face interaction and not a lot of deep thinking anymore," explained reading specialist Maria Corkern.

Even though such media makes it likely that children today are reading more than children a half century ago, Princeton University research indicates that modern teenagers' vocabulary averages about 10,000 words, compared with 25,000 words for a teenager living in the mid-'50s.

"They're not using higher level vocabulary to do this [social media] and typically they're not talking about deep subjects that would generate this deep thinking," Corkern said.

That's enough to make any parent say "OMG."

"One of the things you can do is speak to your children," Corkern advised.  "A lot of the time we have such busy lives and we're into the social media, too.  Sometimes you just have to turn the TV off in the minivan and sit and talk with your kids."

"Get the iPods out of their ears and talk to them about current events.  Ask them open-ended questions about what they did today in school.  There are just so many things that you can talk to your children about, but they just aren't anymore."

Talking about a child's day prompts them to use higher-level vocabulary to form descriptive accounts and thus bolster their speaking and critical thinking skills, much more so than a quick "LOL" text message.  Talking, though, is just one step in solving this crisis of linguistic deficiency.  Parents must also read to their children from a young age.

"It's very important," stressed Corkern.  "There are children in poorer areas who have never had someone read to them and they go to school and don't even know how to hold a book; they're holding it upside down." 

"I can't tell you how important it is [to read to them].  They not only get used to to the sound of it, they are watching you and they get used to how you hold the book, not to mention there's that interaction with your child that I think more than anything is what we need right now."