Preserve Native Language Program
In July 2017, the Margaret Byrd Rawson Institute, in partnership with the Thunder Valley
Community Development Corporation’s Lakota Language Immersion Program, provided a free
five-day Orton-Gillingham teacher training at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Anna Gillingham, an educator working with Dr. Samuel Orton, a neurologist, helped create the
Orton-Gillingham approach to language acquisition and grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation
in the late 1800s. This program is MBRI’s way of giving back to the people and community that
influenced Anna Gillingham and helped to shape the multisensory teaching techniques assisting
countless children today.
The Margaret Byrd Rawson Institute is grateful to be able to offer scholarship assistance to
Native American and Indigenous communities focused on preserving their traditional language
and cultural identity. We welcome an opportunity to provide best-practice foundational language
instruction for any language and community we come to serve.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us for additional information.
Our visit to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota
You can find more information about this unique Lakota Language, Immersion program here.
Please, check out their donation page and consider donating to this worthy program.
….I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches, but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.
~Red Cloud (Makhpiya-luta)
