The phrase "functional illiterate" is correct and usable in written English.
It is a term used to describe someone who is able to read and write at a basic level, but unable to understand more complex written materials or to write in a more sophisticated manner. For example, one might say "After years of neglecting her education, she was functionally illiterate, unable to complete even basic reading comprehension tests."
Anyone who does not regard it as a privilege to see these in the same room in the middle of Paris is a functional illiterate where painting is concerned.
"I was a functional illiterate," Mr. Pantoliano recalled recently in a West 45th Street rehearsal studio, where he was getting ready to make his Broadway debut, replacing Stanley Tucci as Johnny in the hit revival of Terrence McNally's "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune".
In recent days he had also come under public scrutiny for his dismissal of the deputy personnel director, Dr. Judith Piesco, five months after she testified that the scoring on a written police test was so easy a functional illiterate could have passed.
Random selection is difficult to practice in most low-income countries as no updated population registers exists, most people are functional illiterate and a formal direction with road name and number to send mail to are not available.
"I sometimes joke that I write for functional illiterates," Willems added.
Colleges and businesses alike complained bitterly that schools turn out "functional illiterates".
For at least the length of the performance, they were not functional illiterates; they were authors, the powerful silent forces behind works performed by Ms. Wolf, star of "My Beautiful Laundrette," as well as by Michael Genet, the Broadway actor, and by Sonia Manzano, Maria of "Sesame Street".
Look, neither party wants more poor people, inferior schools that turn out functional illiterates, health care that is too expensive and inaccessible to many, a weak national defense and a lousy economy.
Sadly, some journalism schools are graduating functional illiterates.
These are fact-free functional illiterates, creatures of TV news and celebrity culture, Postman's walking dead.
As long as there's enough sex and drugs to hold their interest, America's teens could go from being functional illiterates to pretentious quasi-intellectuals who quote Bret Easton Ellis and Hunter S. Thompson at every chance they get.
