"The share market is a place where people with money meet people with experience.
The people with experience get the money. And the people with money get the experience.-Anon"

Below is the development path that I have advocated and seen work successfully for over a decade.

Step 1:

Education about the share market and strategies for investing
This document, The Safe Investing Method has been designed to provide a thorough grounding in share market
principles and the development of successful investing habits. All the information
you need is included in this document. We recommend a thorough study of the
material together with completion of your personal investment plan as a first step.

Step 2:

Practice investing in simulation using historical data
Saratoga's Trade Simulator has been designed to help you learn how to invest
without using your own money. Investing strategies and methods can be tried out
during different market conditions such as downward trending markets (bear
markets), or strong advances (bull markets) in order to improve investing capability.
A structured review process has been included to help you identify problem areas
which you can then work on for improved results. However you can also practice safe investing without software products through simple paper trading.

Step 3:

Practice investing in simulation using live data. This logical progression moves you very close to a live investing environment in that decisions are made in simulation but are executed in real time using live data. This gives you the opportunity to assess how well your investing habits have developed during simulation and how well you might perform in the real market.

Step 4:

Investing in the real market using your own investment funds (capital).
Saratoga's Trade Simulator can be used to support your live investing and track
your performance. The review process is as essential as ever and can be used to
maintain and improve your current rate of return during live investing. You should
also continue to use the simulation environment to continuously improve your
investing skills and test different scenarios or new investment approaches.
As you should be able to see this is a logical and practical approach to share market investing. If you genuinely take the time to implement this strategy I have personally seen time after time that you will reap the rewards.