On the other hand....
Hey, Cindy,
The question you asked is going to get you a dozen different answers--because there is not one, absolute, generic way to become a tarot reader. We can only give you that method which worked for us. For miss_yoko, the most important thing was a journal; focusing on each card, and writing down what she learned about it. For Platinumdove it was exploring the cards by writing down stream of consciousness observations. For HudsonGray, it's diving right into a spread.
Know what? Their methods all work. For them. And maybe for you, too. Or not. So here's what you do--read up on all these methods, give each a try, and use whichever one makes the cards come alive for you. Which ever one makes you want to keep learning the tarot, makes you excited and feels like fun.
Here's what I did when I was just starting that worked for me:
1) The one thing we can all agree on--you must open that deck and give the cards a look. Look through them all. Become friends with that deck, it's your partner, your buddy. Very soon, it's going to be speaking to you. So get to know what it's like; and yes, you'll find that it does have a personality.
2) Second thing I did--I memorized the cards. I started with the majors. That's the first 22 cards, starting with The Fool. I memorized the first ten, and after I was familiar with them, the rest of the Majors. Then, onto the minors.
3) I read up on their meanings--very basic meanings--key words that I could remember. Like "Birth" and "Newness" for the Fool. "Love" and "Emotions" for Cup cards, things like that. I connected meanings to images. Why would The Fool card mean things like "newness"?
4) After I was familiar with all this, I started playing around with them. Delving into simple spreads and seeing what meanings I got.
In a few weeks I was pretty comfortable with those cards and their meanings, and that's when I cracked open the books and used the resources on this forum to expand those simple meanings. I offer this advice only because I've found that some people find the book meanings daunting--long passages for 78 cards! But starting with one or two word meanings for 78 cards isn't so hard. And once you know them, it's easier to expand from there.
DO make use of the "stickies" you see at the top of this section. Firemaiden has created a library of threads that contain the answers to just about any tarot question you might have as you start to learn--from how to shuffle the cards and lay out the cards to what each one means.Reading those discussions on meaning might help more than any book because they'll show you the richness and flexability of meaning in the cards. Personal observations, observations gleaned from books and history, and observations gotten from actual readings. Most of all, don't be daunted. Start off small and easy. Build up. And remember this, once you start learning the tarot, you never stop. We're all still learning. You won't get it all at once--but whatever little bit you have, that's always more than enough. Have fun!
Yuko