Another way to learn at a basic level, is buy a cheap multimeter, and purchase one of those electronics learning labs from radio shack, or elenco, then follow there instructions on building a circuit, then it's time to experiment.
Keep a log notebook, then begin to change out components, to see how it affects the circuit performance, and record it in your notebook.
Here is what I did when I knew nothing about electronics.
I bought one of those 130 in 1 labs from radio shack.
Then built a circuit using there instructions, to make sure the circuit worked as specifiede.
Then I began to remove components to see how it affected the circuit, if the circuit did not work, I put the original components back in, then removed another component, if the circuit still worked somewhat fine, I would remove yet another component, I kept on removing components, until I had the circuit working with as least components it could do without, then by having it broken down into it's most simplest form, I began to study it by changing values of the components that were left, and recording what the circuit did, kept doing this until finally I had some idea how the circuit works and why it works with the components that were originally in the circuit.
But always remember to keep a log of major changes to refer back to when studing this circuit.