General :: Text Editing In Android Text Fields?

There is obviously a mechanism for selecting, cutting, pasting, and generally editing text in text fields. Little pointer widgets appear under text from time to time. In general, I can't figure out how to use them. Furthermore, on a Kindle screen (which is bigger than a smartphone screen) I can't touch or drag them accurately--they're too small, the drags required are too small, and there isn't any automatic magnifier like there is on my iPod Touch.

What I find particularly frustrating is that I can't find an easy way to move the insertion point back and forth one character at a time, the way I would with cursor keys, and I can't find any easy way to delete the character just ahead of the cursor.

Is there some kind of how-to guide that spells out just how to do text editing within text fields on a touchscreen Android device?