Doing Simple Tarot Spreads For Beginners

Learning to read tarot cards for the first time can seem overwhelming — most tarot decks contain 78 cards, each with its own unique meaning and imagery. Reading tarot is a combination of memorizing card meanings and honing your own intuition, The connections you make with the meanings and imagery on your tarot cards are just as important as the meanings in a guidebook, if not more so.

New readers often need time and practice to trust their interpretations — fortunately, there are many simple tarot spreads for beginners that are easy to learn (but can still answer complex questions!) so that you can get started with your new tarot deck right away.

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A Single Card

The easiest tarot spread for beginners is a simple one-card spread. Memorizing an entire tarot deck can seem like a daunting task for beginners, but pulling a single card is a great way to begin to learn the meanings of individual cards, start interpreting the artwork on your particular deck intuitively, and build confidence doing simple readings. A single card pull is especially helpful for yes/no questions or general forecasts for the upcoming week, month, or year.

Many beginning tarot card readers build a single card reading into their morning or evening rituals as a daily practice — this allows you to look for how the meaning of a particular card might manifest in your life on any given day, and get a better idea of how esoteric meanings translate into real-life situations. Try using one card as a focal point in meditation — what images does that card bring to mind? What feelings do those images bring up for you? Taking the time to focus on individual cards in your deck builds the foundation for trusting your own intuition and diving into more complex readings down the road.

Three Card Spread

A three-card tarot spread is a deceptively simple tarot spread for beginners that can take on many different meanings and layers of complexity. In a three-card spread, you can begin to explore how your cards build on each other in a reading and work in combination. Can you identify any patterns or repeating themes in your reading? Are there recurring or complementary elements in the artwork? Take the time to sit with a three-card spread and consider how each of the card meanings might connect — readings that seem non-sensical at first often fall into place as we meditate on the elements of each card and how they intersect. Three card spreads are a great choice for reflecting on a specific situation, gaining insight about what path might be wise to take in the immediate future, or exploring how two factors influence a whole, such as two partners in a relationship.

Common three-card spreads include:

1. Past
2. Present
3. Future
4. Mind
5. Body
6. Spirit
7. Person #1
8. Person #2
9. The relationship

Crossed Three Card Spread

A simple variation of a three-card spread, a crossed three-card spread lays the second card horizontally over the first card. This spread can be especially useful for exploring obstacles in the path between you and your desires. A crossed tarot spread can also be done with two cards, but the crossed three-card spread allows for additional clarity and summation provided by the third card.

Common crossed three-card spreads include:

1. What’s helping you
2. What’s hindering you
3. Advice
4. Opportunities
5. Challenges
6. Likely outcome
7. Start this
8. Stop this
9. Your potential

A Four Card Advice Spread

A four-card spread is a perfect spread for detailed advice and shadow work. Slightly more complex than a three-card spread, a four-card spread can add insight into our hidden desires or what we’ve been neglecting in our situation. Four card tarot readings are also especially effective relationship readings, allowing you to pull a card for each person in the relationship and a card for their desires, dreams, or ulterior motives. Four card tarot draws can also be used as a focal point in spellwork, with each card representing one of the four elements, or as an annual overview for what to look for in each season of the year.

Common four-card advice spreads include:

1. Person #1
2. Person #1’s desires or hidden motives
3. Person #2
4. Person #2’s desires or hidden motives
5. The situation
6. Past Influences
7. Advice
8. Action
9. Past
10. Present
11. Future
12. Guidance

Learning to read Tarot should be an enjoyable process — there’s no right or wrong way to begin exploring these simple tarot spreads. Different readers will read the same spread differently depending on what personal connections are made and where their intuition leads them. Relax and let your cards speak to you and choose the tarot spread that feels right at the moment. Don’t be afraid to modify a tarot spread in any way you see fit! Some of the most insightful readings come from a tarot spread made up at the moment or modified intuitively for the situation at hand. Happy reading!