It's all very well an experienced aviator or aviatrix teaching themselves all this stuff from a book - but we're talking about a just-qualified PPL here who is probably still struggling with most of the basic concepts, I still think a couple hours with a QFI is a bloody sensible idea regardless of the law.
My last field landing was in the UK in 1500m visibility in a 300ft cloudbase. Everywhere on route was forecast 2500ft base, 10km viz - there may be places in the USA with weather that does that in 5 minutes without fair warning, but they're not the places that they put the flying schools.
G