Txting kids short on words

Every child should have a dictionary as young people are suffering from a vocabulary deficit, literacy and child development specialist Professor Tom Nicholson says.
Mr Nicholson, from Massey University's College of Education, said kids were failing to build their vocabulary, threatening their learning, confidence, future job prospects, relationships, and the ability to understand jokes.
"In this increasingly technological world, we don't have the same opportunity to build vocabulary," he said.
"Reading is coming to be seen as boring and useless, Parents are the last bastion of defence against this peer culture where kids don't see the need to build vocabulary."
In his new book Teaching Reading Vocabulary, Mr Nicholson urges teachers and parents to encourage children to read more, and also to use a dictionary and a thesaurus.