Hi Branwen, Sorry I don't really have answers for most of your questions but I thought I'd suggest what we used to get my DD up and reading quickly. She really wanted to read, but wasn't moving along as quickly as she wanted. She is a voracious reader, and was even when we were reading to her. We used Scholastic's Headsprout Clicksmart online program. https://www.headsprout.com/login/index.cfm

I don't know if you have tried computer learning, but this is the first my DD5 (then 4) did and *loved* it! She went from sounding out 3 letter basic words to really reading very fluently in the space of a few months. It was amazing to me. She also has a problem being wrong and didn't like to read to us since we had to help her along. The computer took care of that...it didn't bother her to be told try again by the computer. I was quite impressed with the quality of the program, though it was a little pricey. For me, it was worth every cent. They have a free trial. I only wish I could find something similar for math...

Anyway, hope that helps.