speakup.synth= vs modprobe

[John G. Heim]

I installed the 2.6.26 kernel from debian lenny along with the speakup 
modules.  I modified my /boot/grub/menu.lst to use speakup.synth=ltlk as a 
boot parameter. But I don't get speech during boot. If I log in after it 
boots and type 'modprobe speakup_ltlk' then I get speech.

Any explanation for this? Below is the boot stanza from my menu.lst.

title  Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-1-486
root  (hd0,0)
kernel  /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-486 root=/dev/hda1 ro speakup.synth=ltlk
initrd  /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-1-486