A spread is simply where you put the cards. Fifteen of them, grouped by what you actually need to ask.
Knowing the seventy-eight cards is only half of tarot. The other half is the spread: the pattern you deal them into, where each place on the table carries its own meaning. The same card says something different in What Holds You Back than it does in What Already Works — position is what turns a pile of cards into a reading.
Pick it before you shuffle, and pick it for the question you have — not for how impressive it looks.
Hold it in mind while you shuffle. Open questions read better than yes-or-no ones.
Lay the cards face down in the numbered order, then turn them all up together.
Take each position, then look for the story across them. That last part is the reading.
A card dealt upside-down is reversed, and usually softens, delays or turns its meaning inward. If reversals feel like too much while you are learning, turn every card upright — the spread still works. Meanings for all seventy-eight cards live over on Learn the Cards.