Deleting words by accident in Pages

When I am typing quickly, I often correct automatically by hitting the delete key and fixing the erroneous letter, by moving the cursor.

For some reason, Pages now highlights the entire word, meaning that when I hit delete, I lose the entire word. Moreover, if I am fat-fingered, I can lose 2-3 words instead of just moving the cursor.

How can I turn off this feature? It is enough of an annoyance for me to go back to Word (shudder).