It's time to do something with the button window below the screen.  
Notice, this button window has an header at the top (just to shorten mouse movements!). In this header you find a row icon buttons. These indicate the available button groups. 

First go to the Material buttons. 
Select with LeftMouse in the 3D window the Object 'Plane'. (Notice that the Material buttons always show the ACTIVE Object.) 

This button field will be explained in later chapter. Just for now try to find the sliders: 

'R' 'G' and 'B': the color components 
'Ref': reflectivity 
'Spec': Specular component 
'Hard': Hardness, the specular size. 

The Preview Render directly displays the result. Try the little red sphere button above it. This indicates a preview option, it doesn't affect the actual rendering. 

Select the sphere (Leftmouse). This newly added Object doesn't have a Material.  
To assign a Material we must use the 'menu' button in the Buttons header:  

This pops up a menu with 2 choices:  
- 'Material': you can assign the same material as used by 'Plane'. 
- 'ADD NEW": add a new material block. 

This menu button and its browse functionality is an important Blender feature. Use it for almost all data types: Textures, Meshes, Worlds, Scenes, etc. 

Make a quick rendering to look at the new Material appearances (F12). Note that the sphere still is rendered faceted. Smoothing by normal interpolation is a not a Material Property.  
It is a Mesh property and can be indicated for each face seperately.  
Go to the Edit buttons - remind to select sphere first - and press the button: "Set Smooth". 
Make a rendering - F12 - to see the result. 

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