Listening as a skill may be extremely similar to reading, but the text the listener has to deal with is considerably different from the written one. Most obviously, the listener cannot look at what he is trying to hear. Whereas the written word stays on the page and can be looked at more than once, the spoken word, unless recorded on tape or record cannot be repeated. Of course in a conversation it is possible to ask someone to say something again, but the fact remains that while a reader can look back at something as many times as he wants, the listener cannot.