Morphology Matters: Getting Affix on Vocabulary - This 11 X 17 placemat provides teachers with a contextual framework for teaching syntax and roots and affixes.  Teaching roots and affixes are difficult vocabulary objectives that are oftentimes minimally addressed or often ignored in the curriculum.  Knowledge of roots and affixes give students access to hundreds of thousands of words. The Morphology Matters tool facilitates teachers strategically addressing roots and affixes while simultaneously teaching literary text structures.  While teachers instruct students in the characters in the story, with a focus on “who”, they also have an opportunity to teach the suffixes that mean, “one who_____.”  When reading about Benjamin Banneker they learn about an astronomer, scientist, inventor, and activist.  Students have just learned about three suffixes that mean, “one who”, -er, -ist, and -or.  They have also learned that the who is a noun.