First things first. In order to understand your dashboard you need to understand that there are two parts to your website.
The front end and the admin area.
The front end is what your visitors see.
The admin area is how you manage and add new content to your website. When logged in as an administrator you gain access to admin tools to edit your website even while viewing the front end of the website via the top admin menu.
Dashboard
Let's learn the basics of your website dashboard.
After you log in to your website admin area you'll be redirected to the dashboard. From here you can see widgets to help you get a quick glance of everything happening on your website.
Some widgets include:
At A Glance - an overview of your website including number of published pages and posts and your active theme
Site Health - a report generated by WordPress on the health of your website
Activity - a quick view of recent activity on your website from blog posts to comments
Tip: To add or remove dashboard widgets click the Screen Options button in the top right corner.
The Sidebar Menu
On the left hand side of your admin dashboard you'll notice the sidebar menu. This is how you'll navigate everywhere within your website dashboard.
Hovering over the different menu items will bring up a fly out menu with more options. These options change based on the menu item you're interacting with.
Tip: Each parent menu item can be clicked as well. For example if you click on Posts it will take you to a list of all your posts.
The Top Admin Menu
Along the top of your screen you'll notice another menu. This menu helps you take quick action from anywhere on your website while you're logged in as an administrator.
For example: Let's say you are on the front end of you website reviewing a post you've recently published and you notice a typo. From the top menu you can click the Edit Post menu item to start editing the post as an admin.