Word problems are written backward from how students are used to reading paragraphs. The main idea is often in the last sentence rather than the first.
Barton and Heidema suggest the SQRQCQ process
Survey - quickly read the question to get the gist of it.
Question - ask what information the problem requires
Read - reread the problem to extract the relevant info needed to solve it
Question - ask what must be done to solve the problem - what are the steps needed
Compute - do the steps
Question - does the answer make sense