People spend years specifically learning how to read starting in early childhood. It's expected in the current era that people above a certain age are literate

People spend years specifically learning how to read starting in early childhood. It's expected in the current era that people above a certain age are literate to at least some degree. People usually don't spend years specifically learning how to interpret icons except when they have to in an app or on a sign they run into. "Menu" has a consistent meaning (a list of items to choose from) which most people can be assumed to know. Icons aren't as easily parsed and take more of a mental load to reason about them. Or just trial and error to figure them out.