According to the latest neuroscience, the human brain uses neurons in the left visual cortex to process written words as whole word units. (inc.com)
He believed children would better understand what they were reading if they first learned to read whole words. (apmreports.org)
Be cautious with your use of the «replace» option, though: it can have unintended consequences unless you're very careful about only matching whole words rather than parts of words! (thewritelife.com)