What Dude said.

I think for the OP switching textbook/curriculum may have something to do with it. My DS uses Go Math and for all its faults, it started with word problem in K and does ask the kid to come up with word problems for a equation too.

I never had a problem with word problem in Math. But I had a hard time in Newtonian physics. I often had trouble knowing how to translate the stated problem into equations. I never had problems with the other parts of physics either. In my case, I didn't really understand the physics.