There's a methodology of teaching programming focused on understanding and designing programs. It's in the book (available online for free) called How to Desig

There's a methodology of teaching programming focused on understanding and designing programs. It's in the book (available online for free) called How to Design Programs: https://www.htdp.org https://www.htdp.org It introduces the notion of a "design recipe" for structuring thinking and problem-solving for programming.