That's exactly what I was trying to say. Don't get me wrong knowing the terminology is a good thing to have, but if you don't have the skills, how can you be a programmer?
She's currently going for an Associates degree at a technical college and then she's going to go for her Bachelors at another school. She'll get into Data Structures and the rest in another year. That's basically the way I was taught with a couple of languages first and then the real classes later. (Although my languages were very different at the time.)