Erfurt (dpa/th) - For Thuringia's Education Minister Helmut Holter, good reading means entering into a dialogue with the children who are listening. "I read it so that I read it as well as possible and work on the text together with the children," said the left-wing politician of the German Press Agency. The 69-year-old took part in the nationwide reading day on Friday and read a book to children in the Awo kindergarten in Buchenberg.

In order to get into a conversation with the children, he also interrupts the reading, looks at the pictures with the children and talks to them about them. He also asks the children questions - for example about animals that appear in the text, whether they have met them before, for example.

For him, reading aloud also means explaining terms and checking whether the language used is really appropriate for children. "It's actually about questioning whether the children understand the text," said Holter. "Reading and dialogue in one - that's my principle."