Enhanced utilization of surface primers in clusters

A method of preparing immobilized templates for a nucleic acid sequencing reaction comprising:

• (a) providing a solid support having a plurality of forward and reverse amplification primers immobilized thereon, wherein a subset of said plurality of amplification primers comprises a cleavage site;
• (b) amplifying a template using the subset of primers on the support to produce a plurality of double-stranded nucleic acid molecules, wherein both strands of each double-stranded nucleic acid molecule are attached to the solid support at their 5′ ends;
• (c) cleaving the subset of primers at the cleavage site;
• and
• (d) subjecting the cleaved strand to partially-denaturing conditions to facilitate hybridization of a portion of the non-immobilized strand of the amplification product with the complementary immobilized amplification primer, followed by extension of the immobilized amplification primer to generate a copy of the non-immobilized strand of the amplification product.