Smaller tarot spreads aren't necessarily easier or more beginner friendly. They can actually be more difficult, IMO
Drawing large spreads as soon as you begin learning tarot has a lot of advantage. Studying individual cards and working slowly with 1 or 3-card draws may work for some people, but this isn't the only or even the best way to learn tarot.
Reading fewer cards isn't always easier!
To me, the "magic" of tarot is linking cards and seeing patterns of information across a spread.
The job of a tarot reader is not memorizing cards. Memorizing card meanings is not required to be an effective reader.
IMO, the job of a tarot reader is to find patterns and narratives within a spread.
This can be easier to do with larger spreads, and harder with small spreads.
The purpose of a 3 card draw is not to individually interpret 3 cards.
The purpose is to discover a pattern within the cards. If it's a beginning/middle/end spread, do the cards seem to start off in a dreary way, and develop into a good/positive outcome? Is the middle card a road bump, while the beginning and end cards are smooth sailing?
Once you find patterns within a spread, the narrative can make itself readily apparent.
In a beginning/middle/end spread, if the general portent of the cards appears to be poor/better/best, then we might say that the general shape of the reading is an upwards trajectory.
So, what meanings of the cards fit the shape of an upward trajectory?
Almost all tarot cards have contradictory, mutually exclusive, or unrelated sets of meaning.
If a card's meanings include responsibility/drudgery/burden/mistake/success after work, then which meaning applies?
If that card is at the beginning of the upwards trajectory, the specific meanings that fit in might be meanings of burden or mistake.
If that card is at the end of the upwards trajectory, then it is more likely that the meaning of success after work applies.
But it would not be possible to use the pattern of the spread to shape the narrative in a 1 card draw. There are not enough cards to form a pattern.
The purpose of a spread is to facilitate linking the cards in such a way that patterns of information rise to the surface like cream.
This makes discovering the meanings of each card easier, not more difficult.
This can also mean that for beginners, larger spreads can be easier to read because patterns can be more apparent and easier to rely on when choosing narrative themes.
I have a particular favorite spread which I have been using for almost 17 years; my elemental quarters spread.
This spread has a few variations, one of which is the 12 card variation.
12 cards may seem like a heck of a lot for a spread, but it actually gets really simple when you start using tarot to read patterns instead of trying to recall memorized definitions.
In this colorful elemental spread, there are four cards that represent fire, and one quartet that represents fire.
Suppose that you believe fire represents things like passion and drive.
You are reading this spread for someone, and every single fire card is reversed.
Despite the clutter of so many cards, an immediate pattern jumps forth: this person has a serious blockage in the passion and drive in their life, that is permeating every area of their life.
Now that we know this, we can start looking at the meanings for each fire card relating to blockage, delay, or obstacles.
Because of the size of the spread, patterns can be much easier to see, and each card can be more quickly refined.
As a reader, a large spread gives you the ability to say, "I may not know what this card in particular means, but based on the pattern I am seeing in your emotion/relationships section, there is a lot of hope on the horizon."
Larger spreads reduce the need to perform an in-depth reading on each card.
If you have a 3 card draw and one card isn't speaking to you, then you are only interpreting 2/3 of a reading. And that's not a lot.
If you have a 7 card spread and one card isn't speaking to you, then you don't need to beat your head against a wall trying to unlock the secrets of that one guy. You can just say, "I don't know for sure, but based on the pattern, it seems like something bad vibes will happen before you get to the good events coming up."
There is no minimum amount of information you are supposed to get from each card.
You can draw 1 card and write a paragraph on it. Or, you can draw 10 cards and choose one key word from each, representative of the pattern(s) that you see.
The second reading may provide more information using fewer words, and be more accurate too - because the interplay of cards influences what key words best fit, instead of grappling with many meanings of a single card without direction.
You can get less than 1 key word from a card.
You can draw 3 cards, find the pattern in them, and choose 1 key word for all three.
You can draw 12 cards and get a 4 word reading.
And I stand by my belief that this 4 word reading may well ring more true than a paragraph of generic definitions pulled from a single card (shaped, if the reader is lucky, by context clues the querent has provided when they submitted their question).
I've been reading tarot for almost 2 decades (err... going on 17 years) and only in recent years have I been able to successfully read 3 card draws.
In my opinion, smaller spreads and draws can be significantly more challenging.
If you are getting stuck with your tarot practice, try moving on from "card meanings" and into "pattern-shaped narratives".
(Which is the term I made up for it)
