I hope I'm not overstepping jumping in on this convo, but another reason why a teacher might bring up this early on is due to a lot of the speech therapy funding is focused on the early years and there are a few cutoffs for funding - often around age 6-7. So if they can identify potential issues early, you/they can apply for funding of speech therapy and have it covered for a while, instead of leaving it until it's too late for funding. I haven't had to navigate this issue personally, but I've had a number of friends who have.
