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DS4 was having great fun with Dreambox, but he's come up against three games that he just can't get past. I saw another parent suggest playing past this part under the "play as a parent" section to see what starts up after the student gets over the hump.
I thought this was a pretty good idea because the problem DS is having is that he can't remember the number of dots flashed to him.
So I go into the play as a parent section and I seem to have to go through the entire kindergarten curriculum to get to the point where my son is. Does that sound right? And they're full-on making me play, not like, recognizing that I'm a parent and just giving me a few samples. I've played for at least an hour and I know there's a long time before I get to the point I want to be at.
There has to be an easier way. Can I somehow get more control as a parent to jump around learning activities?

excellent question! I'd love to know too. And I am so not going through all of the stuff first.

what games are you stuck on?

I'm listening on this one too .... DS4.5 started Dreambox last week and is about 30% through K and I haven't really done any playing myself. I just hope he goes through without me having to do anything. He likes to do things on his own. I didn't even realize it was so "conditional" to get to the next levels?

OK...

DS is not yet good at looking at markers and knowing that there are XX markers there. He's getting better at the number rack, with the red and white beads and can generally recognize lower numbers, but not numbers >5 on two lines or larger numbers in general.

Two of the games he was stuck on were the type where they quickly flash a picture of the number rack and he has to click on the written number of it. The other one was adding to 10, but the numbers were represented by dots in various ways (e.g. three rows of two, plus a single dot to be 7). He can't really recognize what those are without counting the dots, so it would take him a long time and he would get frustrated.

After scouring the FAQ, I learned that getting the same games over and over has to do with not finishing the game. The software doesn't know where to "place" him within the curriculum if he doesn't finish it out.

So we sat together and worked through these hard ones. I explained that he just had to finish, even if he got things wrong. I help him work things out that are "too hard" and he cleared a few games, so it boosted his confidence again.

I'm often either next to him or nearby to help if he needs it. I wish he'd be more independent....

Sometimes there is a "too hard" button. When you click it it will go back one step to an easier version of the same game. Did you see it? It's in the bottom right corner - but it isn't always there. I thought it comes up when the player is struggling ...

I've never seen the "too hard" button, so I looked at the FAQs. It seems that it only comes on unit pretests. I assume that since DS is only 4, they haven't even tried any pretests, assuming that he doesn't know anything?

You'd think they'd let me try a few as a parent, though.

DS is only 4.5 and started Dreambox little over a week ago and it does give him pretests since I noticed in the progress report it shows he passed pretests in 2 of the categories so far and in one it jumped him from K to 1st grade. But I try not to be around as he makes mistakes on purpose when I'm near him because he likes to test ME and I don't want him to mess with his progress just to have fun tricking mommy But it does give him pretests.

Yes, usually everything starts with a pretest. If the player passes it he will be given the next pretest and so on. Until they don't quite know how to do it and then the lessons start.My son passed K and part of grade 1 in unit pretest and only then started the "lessons" (which look like the games he played when passing the unit pretests but it then starts going more slowly and has more repetition). So the "too hard" button only comes then? Good to know.
So maybe because your son was having a hard time with this one task he is in the actual curriculum now. You could check in the reports section like MK13 mentioned. It also breaks down what he has learned already.