I can perhaps answer some of that from myself, which may not be a universal experience of it. When I try to, I always see whole words.
Thanks, Zen Scanner. It's helpful to know some people can visualize whole words since that's how I am trying to get my son to remember the spelling of site words. But I don't think my son (nor I) can do it very well. I wonder whether it is something a person can learn and improve over time (in which case we should keep plugging away at it), or whether I should try another method of teaching site word spelling.
Interestingly, I've been testing my own ability to visualize site words quite a bit today and have found I can do it much better when I try to visualize the word in cursive. Oddly, I never write in cursive except for signing my name.
