Ask HN: On Teaching how to Code

I have had this complain from students that they are able to think of solutions or algorithms etc but struggle with translating their thoughts into code. So I am thinking of ways to try help students overcome this.

One idea I have is to tell them to write their thoughts down as comments in the code. then break down each line in to simpler steps. and eventually convert to code.

What are your thoughts on this? What other way can we use to make it easier for students>