Solve word problems with confidence and pleasure. This page, and the one to which it links, are the main ones you need to break the problem solving barrier. Quite simply, students cannot solve word problems reliably because they are presented with inconsistent models of problem solving that contradict the logical processes they have learned in other courses and in everyday life.
Problem solving continues to be taught using archaic problem solving methods.
The significant reforms in education of recent years have not been applied to problem solving. Students are not taught the problem solving process. The thinking part of problem solving is typically suppressed. They are primarily exposed to the result of the process. In the typical textbook the thought processes, the planning, the problem solver used to solve the problem are omitted.