OACOMA, S.D. (AP) - Incorporating native language and culture into South Dakota's curriculum will help Indian students achieve more success in school, a Todd County educator says.

"Losing the language means losing the culture," says Dottie LeBeau, Todd County's school improvement coordinator and curriculum director. "We need to know who we are because it makes a difference in who our children are."

Studies suggest that 90 percent of Lakota people will be unable to speak their language within a decade, LeBeau says. She wants to revive the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota languages, both in schools and among adult Indians, as a way to connect a people with their culture.

LeBeau last week headed a language advocacy committee that recommended weaving Lakota language and culture throughout tribal, public and private schools. She and other committee members made several recommendations during the Oacoma summit hosted by state Education Secretary Rick Melmer:

- Make sure language policies and practices in school are consistent with the desires of parents and community.

- Provide follow-through support for local language curriculum advisory committees and incentives for students to participate in language programs.

- Set aside times and places where students can practice language skills in an immersion environment.

- Incorporate appropriate traditional cultural values and beliefs in all teaching.

- Provide an in-depth culture and language orientation program for all new teachers and administrators, including participation in an immersion camp with local elders.

- Provide Nakota, Dakota and Lakota language courses for students in every high school in South Dakota, especially those with native students enrolled.

"Children who are most proficient in their native language are also most proficient in another language and other courses," LeBeau told participants. "When we're talking of achievement, when we're talking of No Child Left Behind, we need to have the language. We need to have the culture for our children to succeed."

Some officials at schools with a high percentage of Indian students agree.

The Smee School District near Wakpala last year added an instructor to teach the Lakota language in each classroom and planned to integrate Lakota and culture at all grade levels.

For the first time this year, Marty Indian School hired a Lakota language teacher, Redwing Thomas, says Russell Leonard, elementary principal and acting superintendent.

"Each day, he goes into each of the classrooms, kindergarten through fourth grade, and spends time on the language," Leonard said. "In addition to that, once a week he does an Indian studies program for each class, going in and talking about the culture, history, the things these students should know."

Native language and culture has been stressed at tribal colleges and universities for several years, says the head of graduate studies at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

But Stephanie Charging Eagle says the effort can't be limited to schools.

"The schools can't do it alone," Charging Eagle says. "The whole community has to get involved."

AP-WS-04-27-04 1222EDT