I see the picture in my knittng book but I still don’t quite get the YO. Is it as easy as looping the yarn over the right needle, actually skipping the stitch, and moving on to the next stitch?
There are different ways to do yarn overs in different situations. The most common one is a yarn over where you have just knitted the last stitch and want to knit the next stitch. An important thing to remember about a yarn over is that it is something done between stitches and not part of any of the stitches present.
If you knitted the last stitch and will knit the next stitch all you have to do is to bring the yarn to the front between the needles (as though you were planning to purl the next stitch), from that postion knit the next stitch. This causes an extra stitch to be formed. It is often used to form holes as in lace. If the stitch count is to stay consistent (the usual case) they have you do a decrease near where you did the yarn over to get rid of one stitch. On the next row you work the yarn over as a stitch.
There is probably a video of a yarn over in the increase section on the purple bar above (drop down menu).
You don’t skip a stitch. The YO is formed in between 2 other sts. Just wrap the yarn around the needle as if you were knitting a stitch, but the needle isn’t inserted into a stitch on the left needle. Then go on to the next stitch.