I have broken this off into a new theme because we have drifted a bit from greeting you as a new member.
The other text I wished to refer you to would be RAmopAkhyAna - the Story of RAma in the MahABhArata - An Independenet -Study Reader in Sanskrit by Peter Scharf. The approach is multifaceted but centers on careful linguistic analysis of the selected text. For each shloka there is 1) a literal english translation 2) the text in devanagari 3) the text in transliteration 4) the text in transliteration with the sandhi broken and a coded grammatical parsing of each word 5) a vocabulary for each word that gives further grammatical insight.
Sanskrit is not something I am currently working on although it remains a cherished future project. When I was more actively engaged in these studies, I extensively researched the best learning resources. I have already shared what I consider to be the best published guides to developing reading knowledge after one has completed basic grammar. Now I will share with you several excellent and FREE online resources that I have discovered:
http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/Sanskrit.html
FLASH CARDS
http://www.chitrapurmath.net/sanskrit/sanskrit.asp
Sanskrit lessons developed by a (I believe) swami in sankaryacharya's sampradaya; his math is a a place called chitra pur
http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/sanskrit/tutor.php
Excellent sanskrit lessons developed by university affiliated computer/language geeks - also fonts for all the indian languages if I recall well
http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/Sanskrit.html
Sanskrit lessons and texts in transliteration from some chinese university - they have a bhuddist slant
What follows is the only non-FREE resource
http://samskrita-bharati.org/newsite/index.php
The web page of sanskrita bharati, an ngo dedicated the spread of vedic culture and even spoken sanskrit. Inexpensive couses and degrees are offered