日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 4

If you have a question about the language, ask it and fellow 4channers might see it and answer it for you.


Japanese Ask Questions Thread2
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1206158123/1-40

Japanese Ask Questions Thread3
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1267485093/1-40

I started teaching myself Japanese a couple weeks ago. I've memorized the Hiragana and Katakana charts (reading and writing) and I'm beginning to learn conversational basics. I'm moving along decently on my own, but I have a couple questions:

1. What are the symbols called in the upper-right of modified characters? （ひ＞び＞ぴ）
2. What is a good approach to learning Kanji? I've looked at kanjidamage, but I would prefer to learn with Kana rather than Romaji.