He memorises the words and mixes up the order
It is something every parent who has taught wudu notices: the child memorises all the steps by name, then stands in front of the water and washes his face before his hands. The memorising happened; the ordering did not.
The reason is that verbal memory and procedural memory are two different things. A list you read enters the first; a sequence of actions needs the second. So repeating the list ten times does not fix the fault; what fixes it is practising the order itself.
That is where the ordering games on this site came from: the child drags the steps into place, and when he gets one wrong, the step returns to its correct position in front of him. An error corrected on the spot teaches more than a right answer dictated to him.
Where to begin
First: imitation before instruction. Before seven, the most useful thing parents can do is pray in front of the child and let him copy. No corrections, no instructions, just presence.
Second: wudu before prayer. Wudu is seven visible, tangible steps, while prayer combines actions and words together. Starting with the easier one gives the child an early win.
Third: one complete rakat. Do not teach him the five prayers at once. One well-executed rakat is a foundation to build on; it becomes two, and then the prayer times are added.
Fourth: the count last. The number of rakats in each prayer is a fact to memorise, and it comes after mastering the action, not before it.
A trick for memorising the number of rakats
The method that works with most children: memorise the exceptions first. Fajr is two rakats and maghrib is three — those are the two that stand apart. Everything else (dhuhr, asr and isha) is four.
Instead of memorising five separate numbers, the child now has to hold two and work out the rest. That cuts the load on his memory by more than half.
And the prayer times worksheet on the site brings the times and the rakats together in a single table with a space for weekly tracking, to be hung near where the family prays.
Mistakes that push a child away
Correcting during the prayer. Interrupting a child to fix his bowing turns prayer into a moment of assessment. Correct afterwards, and in one word, not a list.
Prayer as punishment. "Get up and pray" said in anger ties worship to penalty in his mind. The effect lasts for years.
Constant reminders. Asking ten times a day makes prayer a battle between the two of you instead of his own relationship with his Lord. A chart where he puts the mark himself solves precisely this part of the problem.
Frequently asked questions
At what age is a child told to pray?
The well-known position among scholars is that he is told to pray at seven, by way of teaching and habituation. Before that, what he does by imitation and of his own accord is better than any early instruction.
What is the order of the steps of wudu?
The intention, then washing the hands, then rinsing the mouth and nose, then washing the face, then the arms to the elbows, then wiping the head and ears, then washing the feet to the ankles.
How many rakats are in the five prayers?
Fajr two, dhuhr four, asr four, maghrib three, isha four. To fix them quickly: memorise fajr and maghrib, which are the exceptions, and the rest are four.
My son refuses to pray. What should I do?
Look for the cause before the solution: boredom, a sense of compulsion, or an earlier negative association. Easing the pressure and praying alongside him rather than ordering him usually helps, with praise when he does it rather than reproach when he does not. A child imitates more than he obeys.