Abstract Symbols vs. Meaningful Pictures
Alphabetic symbols such as (q, M, v) do not mean anything by themselves. Even though they are associated to a sound, they are still meaningless because they could not be defined in a tangible way. The lack of meaning makes them difficult to understand and remember.

On the other hand, pictures (i.e.: of a cat, a tree, a lake) are meaningful because we can define them in a tangible way. We could talk about their composition, their parts, and share stories about them. These are much easier to understand and remember.

Attaching Meaning to Abstract Symbols
Morphology is defined as the shape or form of an object. When we use familiar pictures that closely resemble the shape of a letter, we attach meaning to the letter.
For example:     ‘s’ resembles a s      (snake)
                            ‘m’ resembles a m (mountain)
                            and  ‘q’ resembles a q (queen)

With practice, children will see the symbolic letter as an outline of a meaningful picture (s, m, q). By naming this picture, they retrieve the associated sound and achieve the most difficult step to decoding texts, “sound-symbol association”.