Nearly every school offers ground courses in-person. If she knows nothing about planes...as in, flight physics, instrumentation, has no idea what a VOR is, etc... then it might be benefical to go in-person so she can ask clarifying questions. I think most folks still prefer the King DVD's but I used Sporty's and they were good. That said, I really started my training in my early 40's and had a Flying magazine subscriptions since I was 9 years old...I wasn't apprehensive at all about doing my own ground school and taking any questions I had to my CFI.
As for the solo, it's up to the CFI and obviously dependent on her flying skills. With regular flying (at least one lesson a week) she should be able to solo around the 10-15 hour mark. Prior to that the flying time will be spent doing all the flying and ground reference maneuvers (stalls, slow flight, steep turns, turns around a point, etc...). She'll have several pattern sessions where all she'll do is land about 20 times in an hour and a half. I think most CFI's, once the time is there, will start counting how many landings the pilot can do without any help. Once she can do 5-10 a row with no help from the CFI, she'll get signed off to solo.
In my case there were two solo's with a written pre-solo test prior that I took home. I had been studying quite a bit for the written even though I didn't take it until a couple weeks before my checkride, so the pre-solo test was pretty straightforward. She'll review it with the CFI (and it will cover things like emergency procedures, pattern altitudes, airspace, etc...).
On the first solo, my CFI and I went up and did a couple landings and she got out and told me to do 3 more TnG's then signed my logbook for my first solo. I came back the next day and we basically did the same thing and from that point on I was cleared to solo on my own. I had my own plane so I did a few more solo's that most folks but all I did was contact my CFI prior to let him/her know that I was going to fly and what I was going to do.
Once she gets to the cross country phase - which is what you start focusing on post-solo - it will be pretty much the same process. She'll do several dual's with the CFI, including a night XC and then she'll get signed off to do her XC solo's. She'll have to put a navigation log for each solo together and have the CFI approve it and notate it in her log book before doing a XC.
As Aviatrix mentioned - she'll need her medical prior to a solo. Honestly, I'd recommend everyone go do that first before they spend a bunch of time/money on flying and find out that they can't fly or have some paperwork to do that delays the medical a while. Doesn't happen that often, but you never know...
Good luck to her!
I'm planning on going this year with a couple of the other Partners in the plane. I'm certain I won't be the one flying us in.