most common servos and radio receivers are plug & play.
Most any Tamiya kit is a good first vehicle to build. Me and my 11 year old daughter built a Tamiya lunch box together.
Tamiya kits do have very good manuals.


the futaba 3003 servos will do the job. I prefer Tower Pro MG996r servos that can be found on ebay for about $10-$15. They have metal gears and more torque. Not really needed in a light 2wd buggy, but nice to have.

The kit's ESC is just fine. There are many much better ones and it would be nice if Tamiya upgraded the one in the kits to a more modern ESC. But it does the job just fine.

You have the terminology pretty much down. ESC, Radio, Receiver, battery (NIMH for now...no need to go lipo) 540 motor (standard size motor for 1/10 scale models) and standard size servo.
Grab the grasshopper or hornet kit, any cheap 2.4ghz radio and a cheap 7.2v battery that is at least 3000mah (mah=capacity, more equals more runtime) and make sure that the battery has the white Tamiya (also called molex) plug which will match the plug on the kit's ESC. You can buy a male and female deans or traxxas plug to put on the ESC and battery....they are higher quality plugs. Again, nice to have but the stock plugs do the job.