This research is aimed to find out whether: (1) there is any significant difference in reading skill between the students taught using Snowball Throwing Method and those taught using Direct Instructional Method; and (2) which group has better reading skill, the group taught using Snowball Throwing Method or the one taught using Direct Instructional Method.
The research method used in this study is quasi experimental research. The research was conducted at SMA Negeri 3 Surakarta in the Academic Year of 2016/2017. The population of this research is the second grade students of science of SMA Negeri 3 Surakarta. The total number of the population is 292 students coming from nine classes. The sampling method of this research is cluster random sampling. From the population, two classes were taken randomly as the sample. The samples are class XI MIPA 9 as the experimental group and class XI MIPA 8 as the control group. Each class consists of 32 students. The research instrument used to collect the data in this study is test. The data were analyzed by using t-test formula.
The computation of the data shows that: (1) there is a significant difference in reading skill between the students taught using Snowball Throwing Method and those taught using Direct Instructional Method; and (2) the group taught using Snowball Throwing Method has better reading skill than the one taught using Direct Instructional Method. In other word, Snowball Throwing Method is more effective to be applied in teaching reading than Direct Instructional Method.