It sure is the case and since I teach programming courses, critical thinking is a must as we are always dealing with logic.
Therefore, I spend a lot of extra time doing analysis of a problem, role-playing as the client and have the students ask pointed questions about what I need before they can write any code.
I also make them read the story problems line-by-line, asking them "what did you learn" from that 1 line of the paragraph... all of this to help them think more critically and grab on to what is important data and what is just a good story.
