Benchmark launches Benchmark Phonics K–5

Benchmark Education has rolled out Benchmark Phonics and Word Study, 2nd Edition, a new K–5 phonics program developed with literacy expert Wiley Blevins. (benchmarkeducation.com) The company says the print-and-digital program is designed for whole-group and small-group instruction in Tier 1 and Tier 2 settings. It covers kindergarten through fifth grade, not just the earliest reading years. (benchmarkeducation.com) Phonics teaches children how letters map to sounds so they can decode words. Benchmark says this edition pushes past basic sound-letter work into multisyllabic words, morphology, and spelling patterns. (benchmarkeducation.com 1) (benchmarkeducation.com 2) The materials include decodable readers, student reading-and-writing books, print and digital assessments, and home-connection letters in English and Spanish. Benchmark also says the program can be paired with its Spanish-language companion, Benchmark Fonética y estudio de palabras. (benchmarkeducation.com 1) (benchmarkeducation.com 2) The launch lands as school systems keep shifting toward phonics-based reading instruction under the banner of the science of reading. New York City Public Schools, for example, said its NYC Reads initiative requires K–5 schools to use one of three pre-approved phonics-based literacy curricula. (schools.nyc.gov) Benchmark is pitching the new edition as systematic, explicit, multimodal, and cumulative, with a spiraled scope and sequence that revisits skills over time. Delaware’s publisher profile for Benchmark describes the company’s literacy materials in similar terms and ties that design to science-of-reading and structured-literacy practices. (benchmarkeducation.com) (education.delaware.gov) The company’s phonics line was already on the market before this release. Benchmark says the prior program was a 2023 CODiE finalist, and its newsroom says Texas editions of Benchmark Phonics and Benchmark Fonética later won approval in the state’s 2025 instructional-materials review cycle. (benchmarkeducation.com 1) (benchmarkeducation.com 2) Texas state review records show Benchmark Phonics and Word Study, Texas Edition, is listed as State Board of Education approved and commissioner recommended, with 100% Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills coverage for the grade 2 student materials it submitted. (im.tea.texas.gov) For districts shopping for early-literacy materials, the new pitch is straightforward: one phonics program from kindergarten through fifth grade, with English and Spanish supports and a heavier emphasis on word study after the earliest grades. (benchmarkeducation.com) (benchmarkeducation.com)