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This is quite late, but now that I'm more knowledgeable about resources for Sumerian I would like to recommend some:

Thomsen's [The Sumerian Language] (http://www.amazon.com/Sumerian-Language-Introduction-Grammatical-Multilingual/dp/8750036548/) is very useful to have even as a beginner and has been the traditional way of learning Sumerian. Good luck getting a hard copy of it though, its been out of print, so it's very difficult to obtain. Maybe try looking for it at a library? I'm sure there are online sources for it though.

Jagersma is also a good source for learning the grammar if you can't get your hands on Thomsen. Fully available online. It was his dissertation, so expect more up to date terminology and currents trends for understanding the grammar.

Edzard's Sumerian Grammar is also good.

With respect to each author, there will definitely be different perspectives on how to understand Sumerian, such as verbal forms, dimensional prefixes, conjugation prefixes, etc. It's up to you to decide what suits you best. My experience with Thomsen is that some of her explanations are ambiguous and the examples she uses can be overwhelming for a beginner (at least it was for me). There are definitely strengths and weaknesses to each of these grammars. Nonetheless, the resources provided are the basics to understanding the grammar and are no doubt useful and adequate for transcription and translation.

I want to stress that in order to the learn Sumerian grammar you need to work side by side with texts/cuneiform. It's definitely difficult to get a grasp of everything while reading the grammar without having lessons similar to Hughnergard's Grammar of Akkadian to guide you. It would be useful to start out with brick inscriptions and such. This is where John Haye's Manuel of Sumerian Grammar and Texts is useful because it provides lessons and such. I'm also confident you can find this easily. Hope this is helpful. Good luck.

Edit: How can I forget Labat. Definitely essential with understanding the development of sign forms and also provides signs values (French). There's also EPSD, but there are plenty of weaknesses of using this due to a lack of context, but nonetheless useful. Yeah... unfortunately there are a lot of expensive books in this field.

There are no centers of Akkadian or Sumerian in Florida so you will probably want to undertake self study. Unless you are certain that you need Sumerian, you should probably begin with Akkadian. Our entire understanding of Sumerian is filtered through our understanding of Akkadian, so you can drastically reduce the difficulty of Sumerian by learning a bit of Akkadian first. Unfortunately, serious self-study of Akkadian takes a minimum of 9 months before you'll be able to read an actual cuneiform text. It is roughly similar in difficulty to learning Japanese if you are a native English speaker.

If you have some experience with any ancient language, even Greek or Latin, then you will probably find Caplice - Introduction to Akkadian to be the best starting point for self study.

If you read Hebrew, you will probably prefer using Marcus - A Manual of Akkadian.

If you have no experience with ancient languages, or if you want more guidance, then I strongly recommend Huehnergard - A Grammar of Akkadian. There is also an Answer Key that you can use to check your progress. Huehnergard provides bibliography for further reading so once you get through the entire textbook, you should know how to go wherever you want to go next.

There are other options available if you read German.

Finally, I am a practicing Assyriologist at a major university with experience teaching both Akkadian and Sumerian. I offer online tutoring in Akkadian or Sumerian via Google Hangouts. PM me with serious requests for details.

Good luck in your studies! Learning to read the wedges is challenging, but it is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. It expands the depth of your historical awareness by orders of magnitude, and it is also really (technical) fun.

Have you tried using a textbook, such as Huehnergard's Grammar of Akkadian? I know it has some NA signs and texts in it as well.