This paper offers a description of the Ball-Stick-Bird reading system which has been used successfully to teach students with IQs as low as 20 to read with comprehension. A summary of research findings on this approach is presented as well as a discussion of these findings within a neurological/behavioral/evolutionary framework. A new theory of cognitive organization, the "story as the engram" theory, suggests: (1) the ontogeny of human logic; (2) the evolution of language development and the universality of certain parts of grammatical structure; (3) how the central nervous system has overcome the limits of chunk size during information processing; and (4) how contextual memory is stored and retrieved. This theory is seen to offer an explanation for the human species' sudden and meteoric intellectual development, as well as suggest possibilities for even greater achievement. (Contains 68 references.) (DB)