If Joe travels ten miles to work everyday, and he drives a blue car, how many total miles does he drive each day?

So first you take on color highlighter and say “What is the question asking us?” “Are we using addition or subtraction to solve our problem?” “What information in the question don’t we need to answer the question?” (highlight in a different color ),

“So how do we write this problem?” 10 + 10 = 20, so Joe drives 20 miles round trip to work each day.

So start off with easy stuff then start getting more complicated. Be sure to teach vocabulary such as more than, less than, if, then … etc. Do the problems on an overhead projector so it is big and colorful. You almost have to think of teaching as though you are a TV show to keep their interest. When they get better at it, put them up in front and let them dissect a problem for the class either as a group or individually.