Read the last letter of each word instead of the first. The five final forms (ך ם ן ף ץ) mark the end of a word and so make the practice legible at sight, and read as a set they form מנצפ״ך (mantsapach), worth 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900 in turn. Worked mechanically: the six words of the Shema's first verse yield ע ל ה ו ה ד from their final letters, which is not a word — the cipher's honest yield more often than not.
Sofei tevot is the complement of roshei tevot and is used to read a phrase from both ends at once: where the initials give one word and the finals another, the two are read as a pair, and the Kabbalists treat the pairing as a statement about the verse. The five final forms are themselves a unit in the tradition, the letters of the end, and the mantsapach is recited as a sequence in its own right.
Nothing in the library points at this entry yet.