ENcoder speed from -1 to +1

[ekapalka]

Hello! At this point, we've figured out how to program just about every sensor type available to us except the encoder. Now we would like to, but from what I've read, the data type returned is in RPM. For our application, we need it to return a value from (-1) to (1). We would like to gather the data from the sensors while the motors are not under their own control (while we are pushing it), so I don't think we can read the voltage from the motor controllers for this task. Any help would be great!
~Eric
MRT3216