A method of characterizing telomere length. A template may be synthesized in a bulk phase reaction mixture containing genomic DNA. Partitions may be formed after synthesizing the template in the bulk phase reaction mixture, with only a subset of the partitions containing at least one copy of the template. At least a region of the template may be amplified in partitions. Amplification data may be collected from partitions. A measure of telomere length may be determined for the genomic DNA based on the amplification data. In some embodiments, the bulk phase reaction mixture may be thermally cycled for at least two cycles, and heated to a denaturation temperature and cooled to an annealing temperature in each cycle.