There's a fair bit that depends on the child in question. While all of mine do best with at least some practice (I think along your lines, that everyone learns better when they get a chance to apply the theory in a way that's meaningful to them), my older ones are generally pretty good at accepting explanations, while the youngest just needs to learn the hard way most of the time x_x (slowly getting better with age ^_^;)
!ENGAGE 20
ENGAGEtokens.