Speech Selection stopped working after last update

No matter what I try, I can't seem to fix my Speech Selection function.

I've always used Option+Esc to speak highlighted text and now it just opens the speech window for a second, I hear the Command+C copy sound and then nothing. If i try pasting, it pasts what i had highlighted as if i'd intended to copy...

gone into setting to try changing the shortcut and nothing is helping... a bug???

HELP! i rely on speak selection for work.